


Choices

by Erinya



Category: Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl (2003)
Genre: Crossdressing, Drama, F/M, Folk Music, Infidelity, Marriage, Novel, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-04-22
Updated: 2006-04-22
Packaged: 2017-11-07 16:48:37
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 30
Words: 105,911
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/433316
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Erinya/pseuds/Erinya
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Elizabeth Turner seeks freedom, and finds Jack. But when Will gives up his own freedom on her behalf, she must face the consequences of love, betrayal, and choices that cannot be unmade.  Post-CotBP AU.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prelude:  Dreams

**Author's Note:**

> A Note on Quotations: Each chapter will be headed by a few lines or verses from old folk songs, many of them sea shanties. The full songs and their lyrics may be found at www.contemplator.com. 
> 
> Author's Note, 07/02/07: The earlier chapters of this story have been subjected to extensive editing and formatting clean-up since their original posting. My apologies to all of you who had to read the (in some places, very) rough version. In the interest of continuity, I haven't made any major changes to the plot as it stands, just tweaked certain elements to strengthen emerging themes and motivations, and fixing myriad technical flaws and rough prose. The first few chapters do feature some added material from the original, and chapters 7 and 8 were merged into one. 
> 
> "Choices" will probably not be edited again-there are many things I might have done differently with it had I started to write it now, but I consider it a more-or-less finished product at this time. Thanks to all who have shown an interest throughout, and thanks to those who still take time to comment on an older story-I very much appreciate it.
> 
> Author's Note, 6/13/2012: This novel-length fanfic has been archived only at fanfiction.net for many years. I want to make sure it has a back-up archive, as a way of saying thank you to all those who have read it and sent me love over the years.

**"CHOICES"**

Prelude

_Oh love is handsome, love is fine  
and love is golden when it is new  
but it grows old, and waxes cold  
and fades away like morning dew... _

"The Water is Wide" (17th century folk song)

* * *

_Around them, a smooth black sea stretches forever, curving up and up until it becomes a deep black sky._

_She's lying on a beach of fine white sand, watching the glittering stars move across that dark, incredibly wide field...their paths laid out for them, unchangeable. A bonfire flickers in her peripheral vision, causing the shadows of trees and dunes to swell and shift and sink again._

_She lays her head on the shoulder of the man next to her, dizzied suddenly by the circling stars and the unsteady light of the fire._

**_It must have been terrible for you, being trapped on this island._ **

_He smells like seasalt, rum, sweat, and faintly, sandalwood. The scent doesn't do much to steady her. Maybe the rising intoxication in her veins is nothing but the product of the demon rum of which she knows she's already drunk far too much; maybe it is something else. She's not at all certain; she finds she's becoming less and less certain of many things rather quickly._

**_Yes._ **

_His drawl is a little slurred, and his mouth not an inch from her ear._

**_Though the company is infinitely better than last time, I assure you..._ **

_His fingers curl around her shoulder, drawing her towards him, and she is suddenly aware of how the fabric of the sleeve between his skin and hers is so very, very thin._

_She turns to look at him. His eyes are unreadable and nearly black in the fickle light, and the shadows accentuate the planes of his face, the high, almost-delicate cheekbones, his slight frown, the quirk of his lips. She can hear her heartbeat speeding up, a rising roar in her ears...or perhaps it is his heart, not hers...or could that be the surf? It's just another thing of which she is no longer certain, off-balance and ready to fall, pulled in and held by those magnetic eyes. Eyes that are at that moment fixed rather hungrily on her own parted lips..._

_In the heart of the fire, a piece of driftwood surrenders to the heat and snaps in two, releasing a shower of sparks high into the air with a tremendous crack like a pistol shot._

_She awakes with a start, and a name on her lips._

* * *

Her husband reaches over to tuck a comforting arm around her. "'S nothing," he mutters sleepily. "One've the sentries shooting a serpent, no doubt. Go back to sleep."

He rolls back over and promptly follows his own advice, as evidenced by his deep snores. But Elizabeth Turner does not find sleep so easily. She gazes at the ceiling and thanks Providence that Will must have thought she'd cried out "What was that?"

The dream is the same one she's been having off and on for months now. Not a proper dream, either, but a skewed fragment of memory, somehow infused with a weight of yearning to which it most certainly does not belong. She is very sure that in the real memory she did not want to discover what it would be like to kiss Captain Jack Sparrow.

She tosses and turns under the thin coverlet, unable to get comfortable. It's far too warm in this upstairs room anyway, and with the addition of Will's body heat in her bed she feels unbearably stifled, even in her light cotton slip. She's grown used to sleeping alone lately; Will's merchant company is growing fast, backed by her father's funds and influence, and he's been at sea for much of the spring and summer. But she had hoped her troubling dreams might cease at his return, that they were but the restless sleep-fancies of a lonely wife, the natural stirrings of a body starved for touch...

The man beside her shifts onto his back again, without waking, and she props herself on her elbow to study him. He still looks terribly young when he sleeps, and she remembers the boy pulled out of the ocean all those long years ago, laid at her feet on a ship's deck and in her life forever.

"Will," she whispers softly, knowing he does not hear her. She smiles a little, but her throat contracts, a tight ache that feels like the beginning of a sob. Or maybe she's just catching a fever. That could explain why she's so wakeful, why the sheets beneath her cling so damply to her body, why she's near to bursting with restlessness. It might even explain the dream-images still burning in her mind, despite her best intentions to excise them. She wishes it could explain why, even with her husband lying by her side, it is someone else's face she can't forget, or why she can still recall exactly the way he looked at her that night under the stars.

She mutters a most unladylike curse and rises abruptly from the bed.

 _I am Mrs. Will Turner,_ she admonishes herself fiercely. _I am not ill-treated. I even married for love. My husband is a good man, and he loves me_.

 _I should be happy_.

 _I should not be troubled by dreams_.

She crosses to the French windows that lead to the balcony and throws them open, letting in a light breeze to ruffle the lace curtains and freshen the stuffy air of the bedchamber. For a moment she pauses on the threshold, inhaling deeply; then she steps over it into the night.

She doesn't much care anymore who sees the Governor's daughter wandering about in her underclothes in the wee hours. These late-night promenades have become her habit these past few months, and to that end she's been encouraging a rumor that she sleepwalks. The iron balcony rail feels pleasantly cool against her stomach, even through the thin material of her shift, as she leans far over to stare out at the bay.

The water wrinkles only a little under the light of the waxing moon. The Turner house is situated on the cliffs overlooking Kingston Harbor, across which only a a few lamps burn fitfully in the streets of Port Royal; she can just make out the red-coated sentry on watch at the seawall of the garrison. Beyond the city, the bay opens out to the real ocean, whence she fixes her gaze, drawn by the lingering, inexplicable dream-yearning that tugs at her entire being like the outgoing tide.

And she finds herself imagining a graceful, menacing vessel sidling out from beyond the cliffs towards her, a black-sailed ship steered by a dark-eyed oddball captain with golden-brown skin, a braided beard, and a scoundrel's smile.

It's been three years, but she knows he won't have changed a bit.


	2. The Turning Tide

**I.  
The Turning Tide  
**

_"Fare you well, lovely Molly, I'm going to leave you  
and to the East Indies my course I will steer  
don't let my long absence be a bother to you, dear  
for we will be married, you need never fear."_

_"Like some jolly young seaman I'll dress and go with you  
in the midst of all danger I'll stand as your friend  
those cold wintry winds, love, around you be blowing  
And I will be there for to wait on you then."_

_"Those little white hands, love, could not stand a rough tackling  
those pretty white feet to the top could not go  
those cold wintry winds you could not endure them  
so stay at home, darling, to the seas do not go."_

"Lovely Molly"

* * *

Elizabeth sits at her armoire, bullying her hair into one of the elaborately constructed styles that have become popular this season, and that she hates so very, very much.

Unfortunately it is considered unacceptable for married women to let their hair loose about their shoulders in public, and the estimable ladies of Port Royal are calling on the governor's daughter this afternoon for an early tea. Elizabeth thinks she'd rather walk the plank over a sea full of hungry sharks than spend her afternoon entertaining that gossipping, petty, unbelievably dull flock of women.

She shoves a pin viciously through her thick braid, jabbing it into her scalp with such force that her eyes water.

"Bloody hell!"

"Good morning to you, too, darling," Will says from behind her. He places his hands on her shoulders, leans down to give her a kiss on the cheek. He's dressed in his finest jacket today, and his rakish hat sports one of those ridiculously large white plumes that he favors.

"And where are you off to so early?" she demands, aware that her tone holds a great deal more asperity than she can entirely justify.

"I must go down to the harbor and see that the _Lady Swann_ is properly outfitted. We sail the morning after next, you know."

She stares at him in the mirror as he adjusts his feather. "Already? You've only been home a fortnight, if that."

"I know, darling. But you know what they say." He's buckling on his sword belt now, and she wonders how long it's been since the gorgeous weapon has left its sheath. He forged the blade himself before the affair of the _Black Pearl_ , but he's hardly the foolhardy swashbuckler these days. He only looks the part. She sometimes considers asking him if he misses the smithy; he gave up his craft after their wedding in favor of the shipping business, telling her he could never give her the life she deserved if he remained a blacksmith.

"What do they say?" she asks instead, opting for conversation by rote in lieu of questions to which she's not sure she wants the answers.

"Time, tide, and commerce wait for no man."

She grimaces. "You sound like my father. An epigram for every occasion."

"Do I?" He's pulling on his good boots; his glance at her is faintly amused. "Is that really so terrible?"

She just shakes her head. She loves her father, but he has an original thought about once a year. She thought Will had more imagination. _We're becoming boring_ , she realizes suddenly, with something close to panic. _At this rate I'll soon be an aging, sour-faced matron, and Will a foppish husband who thinks only in pounds and shillings_.

He rises, returns to her side to drop another quick kiss on the top of her head. "Must go. Give the ladies my respect."

He's nearly at the door when she catches up to him. "Will!"

"What?" She almost bowls into him; he grasps her upper arms to steady her, looking alarmed. "What is it?"

"Take me with you," she cries, breathless.

"To the harbor?"

"No!" Exasperated, she glares at him. "Don't be an idiot. Tomorrow. When you sail for Barbados."

He doesn't have to say it; she can reads the answer in his closed expression. "Elizabeth, I just don't think that's a good idea."

"I think it's a bloody brilliant idea! I want to get away, that's all. Is that so much to ask? I'm sick to death of this sodding island...this bloody sodding house...this bloody sodding _life_ \--!"

He winces. "I wish you wouldn't swear so, darling."

"For God's sake, Will!" She bites back a scream of frustration. "Don't you understand? I have nought to do here but sit and sew lace on petticoats and embroider cushions and order the servants around. There is nothing for me in Jamaica when you are asea, Will, and I hate it. _Hate_ it."

He looks at her like she's just sprouted a pair of horns. "Are you ill?"

" _No!_ " she shouts, eliciting another pained flinch. Drawing a deep breath, she wills herself to speak slowly and evenly. "I am quite well and have been so for a long time now. I am no weak, wilting female, have you forgotten everything you ever knew about me, Will Turner? Do you even remember the girl you named your blasted ship after?" Her voice rises again, breaks just a little; she stops short, quelling the tears that threaten to betray her. She refuses to act the part of the weeping, helpless creature he would make of her.

"We named the ship after your mother," he says, pedantically. "Are you sure you're feeling well? You've been too flushed all morning." He frowns. "And you've circles under your eyes. What if you were to catch another fever? You should rest."

"I am not ill," she says through clenched teeth. "It's the heat. And the boredom. Will, this place is driving me mad! I have convalesced in excess. It's been two years since that thrice-damned fever, and you still treat me as some delicate hothouse flower that might wither away if you move me to the wrong climate. Two years, Will! I was sick _two years_ ago."

"You almost died two years ago." His voice vibrates with quiet tension.

"So did you! The entire crew was on death's door! And some of them _did_ die! I survived. Do you think me weak for that?"

"That is not the point," he says, impatient. "Elizabeth, the ports I sail to these days are not as safe nor as civilized as Port Royal. I do not mean to keep you prisoner, but I will not endanger your life so recklessly. Besides, I promised the Governor--" He halts abruptly, dismay plain on his face.

" _What_?" He doesn't answer. "Will! What do you mean? What did you promise?"

Looking massively uncomfortable, he says, "Your father told me, in no uncertain terms, that if I let you sail anywhere out of the Colony islands again, he'd take his ships back." He avoids her eyes. "So I told him I would do no such thing..."

"I don't understand," Elizabeth says. "Those are your ships."

"Not technically," and the words carry an intense weariness. "I have not repaid to him the value of even one of the vessels."

"But I thought business was good!"

"Yes, business is fair enough. But this house took paying for, and the servants must have their wages. The ships themselves require care, and every man aboard receives their livelihood before I account for mine. And there are...other expenses." This accounting seems to pain him. "All in all," he continues heavily, "I currently own less than half of the _Lady Swann_ , and not a sail nor rope nor plank of the _Freedom_. They are only mine to use until I make a mistake. And if I lose the ships, we lose everything." He meets her shocked gaze at last. "I don't want to lose you into the bargain."

She stares at him, speechless.

"Now, my dear," he says, putting her away from him gently but firmly, "you have made me late. I will dine with you tonight. Perhaps by then you will have regained your reason, and will understand that I do what I must."

He turns on his heel, setting her adrift there in the doorway, still trying to gather her scattered thoughts into a response or an apology. Trying to decide whether he merits an apology after reprimanding her as if she was a child, and a spoiled, somewhat slow child at that. As if he has no hope she'll ever understand or know better.

That condescension, and the detached formality with which he bid her goodbye, reminds her...rather more than she cares to consider...of the man she might have married rather than the one she did. She would expect James Norrington to address her so dispassionately, even coldly...but never William Turner. That was one of the reasons she chose Will, wasn't it? Didn't she fall in love with that, with the bright, impetuous fire in him? Once, she saw herself in that fire; believed they shared it...

When did he become so... _dutiful_?

When did she become just another obligation?

She moves slowly back into the room and sinks onto the bed. The last vestiges of anger have drained out of her, leaving her mind limp and blankly grey. So she was just another stranded lady of Port Royal after all, like the rest of the tiresome wives probably on the march already to invade her drawing room; doomed to die a dull, spiritless woman in the same place as she'd lived most of her life.

And Will! Poor Will. The way he wilted as he admitted his debt, his words defensive, voice brittle with failure. The way his shoulders slumped, weighted by the burden of his promises.

_We are neither of us happy as we ought to be, it seems..._

She stirs, and catches sight of her own image in the looking-glass. Suddenly she sees herself, all too clearly, as Will must see her: the bruise-like impact of too many sleepless nights around too-brilliant eyes, the heat of the argument still flaming wildly in her cheeks, unruly wisps of hair already escaping from a confusion of unevenly placed hairpins. She has to admit she does look a bit feverish. Almost desperate...

Sighing, she tucks errant strands of hair behind her ears, gets to her feet. The hour is growing late, and she must finish her toilette and go downstairs to make sure Hattie has started making the scones, to see that Emmeline has shined the silver to an acceptable brilliance. To keep up appearances. She tries her best to avoid giving Port Royal more grist for the gossip mill, for she too has an obligation to her father; and though he would never be tactless enough to say it, she has done enough damage to the Swann family's reputation by her choice in husbands.

Not until she reaches the landing does it occur to her to wonder what might constitute Will Turner's "other expenses."

* * *

It's a lovely morning on the southwest coast of Jamaica. Though the blazing Caribbean sun has climbed nearly to its apex, a brisk nor'easterly breeze keeps the day from gathering too much heat; the far-off horizon shimmers in the limpid air, a fine blue line at the meeting of sea and sky.

But Captain Will Turner barely notices any of this. He's witnessed such mornings many times before, and in any event is in no mood for breezes or horizons. His anger propels him headlong out his front door and several hundred feet down the carriage-road towards Port Royal before his steps slow to a more measured pace.

He draws a deep breath then, and glances back at the clean white gables of the house on the cliff. Even from this distance, it looks very grand and large to him. Too large. When he stays there, his footsteps echo too loudly under its high ceilings, while his voice sounds tinny and small to his ears. The London urchin turned blacksmith's apprentice in him will never grow used to living with so much...space. But to Elizabeth, their sprawling house must seem a very humble mansion indeed...

No wonder she feels trapped there, he thinks miserably. It's certainly no Governor's estate.

But she cannot truly prefer sailor's quarters to the comforts of home. She must have forgotten the less-than-thrilling aspects of life aboard ship. The drudgery of long weeks at sea, nothing to be seen but waves and sky, sun and stars, nothing to be done but hard labor under a merciless sun. The hungry looks she would receive from lonely sailors, who whether good men or no could not help but notice the presence and shape of a woman among them, and think on it. The smell of unwashed bodies when fresh water must be saved for drinking, not wasted on bathing. The rancid taste all foodstuffs acquire, no matter how carefully preserved, after a month or so of barrel-storage in the thick dank humidity below-decks.

No, she cannot possibly crave that life, he decides. And if she does, he cannot provide it for her. Not just out of fear for her health or for her safety; although those are also very real worries, for she has never quite regained the strength she had before her fever...

He frowns. He hates lying to her. But he has sworn to leave her out of it, and besides, he's let the charade go on too long; it will be much worse for both of them if he tells her now, after two years. She took the half-truth poorly enough already. Even if she were to understand his choice, she might never understand or forgive his deception...

She still believes he's a merchant sailor, and an honest man.

He cannot imagine her reaction should she discover the truth.


	3. Ghosts

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Historical Note** : Because I research odd details, I have discovered that by most accounts, the custom of afternoon tea was not made popular in Colonial British society until the late 1700's or early 1800's; thus, its appearance in this story may be anachronistic. However, taking a cue from Disney, I feel I am justified in playing a bit fast and loose with historical accuracy to fit the needs of the story. They were, after all, fairly vague about what time period, exactly, the movie was set in. Clotted cream, by the way, is a very British condiment; it is very thick and rich, with a consistency somewhere between ice cream and butter.
> 
> **Linguistic Note** : I've done my best with Hattie's patois.  
>  _Why you go 'long so?--_ "What's the matter?" "Why are you behaving so?"  
>  _sweet you right--_ "give you pleasure" or "treat you right."  
> 

* * *

**II**.  
 **Ghosts**

_She, like an angel weeping,  
on the rocks sighed every day,  
awaiting for her own true love  
returning home from sea. _

"Our Ship She Lies in Harbour"

* * *

The silver has been shined within an inch of its life, and the scones emerge from the oven on time and perfectly done, a testament to Hattie's mastery. The tea goes round; the ladies chatter to each other about the latest fashions and speculate on when the doctor will be calling on the harbormaster's daughter, who was hastily married to a young sailor about seven months ago and has been "indisposed" ever since. Elizabeth heaps too much clotted cream upon her warm scone, swamping it. She pokes at the drowned pastry absently with her spoon, watching it break apart and disintegrate, and discovers she's not at all hungry. She hopes Hattie won't notice; the cook gets rather huffy when her offerings go uneaten, and Elizabeth has been offending her all too frequently lately, causing much stomping and pan-banging in the Turner kitchen.

Whatever would she do without Hattie? She herself couldn't make perfect scones if her life depended on it. But if what Will told her this morning was true, it might be best to let the servants go...

After a minute or two, she notices the sudden lull in the conversation around her, and realizes belatedly that someone has addressed her and is waiting for an answer. "Sorry?"

"Miss Edwards asked if you knew your house was haunted," prompts Mrs. Jane Wyndham dryly, reaching for the marmelade.

Elizabeth, still preoccupied by the puzzle of her husband's unexplained expenses, gives both ladies a bright social smile. "I am not aware of any hauntings, Miss Edwards. _Do_ tell."

"Yes, please do!" Amelia Mullroy chimes in. "A ghost! My, isn't that thrilling?"

Miss Melba Edwards fixes Elizabeth with an owlish look. She is the milliner's sister, an older lady with a plump, jolly face and an astonishing hat. "You haven't seen her?"

"No indeed, I have not."

"Ghosts are nothing but a heathen superstition," declares Mrs. DuPont loudly. "You may just as well believe in voodoo curses and those spirits the natives are always on about. Even my dear husband can't seem to beat those devilish notions out of them, poor souls." Mr. DuPont is the new Protestant missionary to Jamaica, and his wife won't let anyone forget it. "Pure nonsense, of course, all of it."

Elizabeth, who knows better, laughs out loud at this, earning a disapproving glare from Mrs. Dupont. She turns to Miss Edwards, becoming interested in spite of herself; and perhaps, just a little, to spite the minister's wife. "So who is this ghostly lady?"

"A beautiful young woman," Miss Edwards announces, pleased to be the center of attention. "She paces back and forth on your widow's walk, Mrs. Turner, all dressed in white."

"She's waiting for her lover to come home from the sea," murmurs Mrs. Gage, dreamily. The others turn to her in surprise, for Mrs. Gage rarely speaks. The tiny, fine-boned woman's extraordinary coloring--black hair, caramel skin, and unearthly blue-green eyes—has spurred a rumor that she is in fact a mulatto, and that her mother was half-Negro; but she is the recent bride of a much-respected plantation owner, and thus the "society ladies" of Port Royal struggle to turn a collective blind eye on her dubious heritage. Blind eye notwithstanding, Mrs. Turner is the first and only wife to invite her to any social function. Elizabeth quite likes Mrs. Gage, and fancies that the lady in question has the air of one who has led a fascinating life, rumors or no rumors; she wishes she could ask her for the real story, but has not yet devised a way of doing so that seems less than inexcusably rude.

"She was a pirate's lady, or so they say," continues Mrs. Gage. "He set sail from the harbor many years ago, and she lit a lamp in her window and watched for him every night, in every weather. But he didn't come back. And one night she leaned too far over the railing, lost her balance, and fell to her death from the cliffs onto the rocks below."

The women shiver in unison, and Elizabeth shivers along with everyone else, forgetting for the moment that her own insomniac wanderings have lent weight to this particular legend.

"I heard she didn't fall," says Mrs. Catherine Dryer. "I heard she was _pushed_."

A chorus of gasps punctuates her statement.

"Y'see," Mrs. Dryer says, surveying her audience, "that poor maid was married. And not to no pirate, neither."

Young Mrs. Norrington's big brown eyes open wide. "You mean her husband...?"

Expressions of shock are displayed all around.

" _Murthered_ her," says Mrs. Dryer, with what appears to be immense pleasure. "Died of harlotry, that one did."

"Mrs. Dryer!"

"Don't you look at me like that, Mrs. DuPont, you know well enough yerself that the judgment of the Lord is swift and just."

Elizabeth tries to not be horrified. "I wonder if her lover ever came back," she says softly, looking at Mrs. Gage, who smiles mysteriously.

"I think he must have," she says in that same tranced voice. "He sailed into the harbor the very next evening, and saw that the windows of the house were all dark, and he believed she loved him no longer. But as the ship drew near to the harbor, he saw a woman in white floating in the water. He dived in to save her, not realizing she was already dead...and it wasn't until he dragged her up on deck that he recognized his beloved."

Elizabeth shivers again, and Mrs. Gage shoots her a sharp, knowing glance; unnervingly observant for a woman apparently deep-sunk in reverie.

"What happened to him?" Elizabeth asks her.

"He went mad with grief, of course, and swore they'd never be apart again. So he tied her body to his, along with a piece of an old anchor, and drowned himself right out there in the bay."

"Oh!" Mrs. Mullroy exclaims. "How perfectly dreadful!"

"A most ungodly tale," sniffs Mrs. DuPont.

"That's love for you," says Mrs. Dryer.

"I'm surprised you haven't heard it before, Mrs. Turner," says Miss Edwards.

Mrs. Norrington has gone rather pale. "I thought such things only happened in fairy-stories."

Mrs. Gage smiles down at her tea-cup. "You're right. Much more terrible things happen in real life."

* * *

When tea is over at last and the other ladies are loading themselves into their carriages, Mrs. Gage pauses on the porch to favor Elizabeth with another indecipherable look.

"Who is it that you wait for?" she murmurs.

Elizabeth stands stock still. _How does she know...?_

"I too often find myself wakeful in the night," Mrs. Gage says quietly, as if in answer. "And I know a ghost when I see one...The woman on your balcony is no spirit. I thought you were waiting for your husband...but since he has returned, I see you walking there more than ever." The sea-colored eyes flash then, like bright sun off deep water. "How much longer do you plan to wait, my dear? Spent thus, a lifetime can be very long, you know; and youth is very short."

"I'm afraid I don't know what you're talking about," Elizabeth whispers.

"We all have our secrets, Mrs. Turner," says Mrs. Gage. And with that she smiles for the third time, and strides quickly down the verandah steps and away along the dusty road.

Elizabeth doesn't move for a while. Finally she turns around and goes inside and up the stairs, pursued by a clamorous flock of uneasy thoughts.

In their wake, too, she senses the glimmering of a strange idea, half-formed; an idea she hardly dares to articulate, but that resonates with the echo of Mrs. Gage's words.

_How much longer do you plan to wait...?_

* * *

The last rays of the rapidly sinking sun filter orangely through the balcony doors, pooling in Elizabeth's lap and on the polished floorboards at her feet. Head bent over Will's favorite shirt, she hurries to finish mending a long jagged tear in the sleeve before the light fades completely; with Will planning to sail so soon, she has more to do in less time than she expected, and sewing by flickering candlelight makes her head ache. He had attempted to mend the shirt himself while at sea, but his loose, haphazard stitches were half-unraveled by the time the _Lady Swann_ dropped anchor in Port Royal, and unraveled almost completely once the shirt was washed. The fabric looks for all the world as if it were slashed by a blade, though by his telling his months away were supremely uneventful.

Downstairs, she hears the front door open and shut, followed by the muffled rumble of male voices: Will's, and her father's. She frowns in the direction of the landing, then mutters an oath as she drops a stitch.

"Elizabeth!" Will calls; he is on his way upstairs. "Elizabeth, we have a guest." Catching sight of her sitting silently there in the lengthening shadows, he halts in the doorway. "Elizabeth?"

He regards her warily, obviously waiting for her to throw her thimble at him, or a question he'd just as soon not answer; but his tone is hopeful. Hopeful that she's forgiven, or forgotten, their little row this morning. She sets his shirt carefully aside; folding her hands and straightening her back, she controls a wince with some difficulty. Sewing always leaves her with such a crick in her neck and shoulders.

"Yes...my husband?" she murmurs, and lowers her gaze to hide the anger that flares suddenly in her veins like lightning. And she has not been angry at him until now, not since he headed off her fury earlier with secrets only half revealed...

"Your father's here," he says. "I invited him to stay for supper." He sounds relieved, as though it's perfectly normal and natural for her to address him so meekly. "Why are you sitting in the dark?"

_Dear Will. You still haven't learned the danger signs, have you? Even Father would know better._

"It is rather gloomy, isn't it?" she says brightly, allowing the spirit of Mrs. Amelia Mullroy to slip into her diction and her widened eyes. "I could have sworn it was light only a moment ago."

"I'll call Emmie in to light the tapers." He crosses the room to her, offering her his hand.

_I am no invalid, damn it! I can stand up on my own, at least..._ But she smiles sweetly and accepts the hand. He links his arm with hers and says, "Shall we go down?"

"Yes, we mustn't keep Father waiting," she chirps.

Leading her down the big staircase, he says, low, "I'm glad you're feeling better."

This time she cannot help but stiffen, stopping short on the landing.

"Is something wrong?" Will asks; and, God save him, he appears honestly alarmed.

"You don't _know_ \--?" she hisses, but she is interrupted.

"Elizabeth, my dear!" Weatherby Swann exclaims jovially. "I do hope you don't mind me intruding on yourself and William for the evening."

Composing her face into a model of hospitality and good cheer, she disengages herself from Will and descends the remaining stairs on her own to greet her father with a quick embrace. "Of course you are not intruding, Father. You are always welcome here, you know that."

He twinkles at her. "Thank you, child. But when a man and wife have so little time to spend in one another's company, that time becomes very precious. I am certain your William wishes he could pass every waking hour of his shore holiday with you."

Elizabeth casts an arch glance in Will's direction; he has the grace to look ashamed. "Unfortunately, business takes up much of my time in Port Royal, sir. But we dine together every night," he amends hastily.

"So it would be a _lovely_ change for us if you joined us this evening," Elizabeth adds, taking her father's arm.

"How are you, Elizabeth?" Governor Swann inquires, as she guides him into the sitting room. "I was concerned to hear you weren't feeling well this morning."

"I'm fine, Father, truly." So that is why he's here! She glares at her husband. "Will worries too much."

"I see." The Governor must have noticed the glare, for a tinge of anxiety creeps across his good-natured features. "Well, it is his duty to do so, my dear. You do look a bit peaked, you know."

"I keep telling her she should be more mindful of her health," says Will, with a hint of triumph.

Elizabeth looks from one to the other, and wonders how it is that she should feel so... _caged_...in the company of the two men she loves best in all the world.

"Excuse me," she manages to say. "I must go and tell Hattie to set another place at the table. Please make yourself comfortable, Father."

Having made her escape, she leans briefly against the foyer wall, taking a long, slow breath. Then the sitting room door opens again, and Will steps out into the hall.

"Elizabeth, whatever is the matter?"

"Nothing," she mutters, turning away from him. "Nothing whatsoever, Will..."

_Nothing that you could understand, it seems._

* * *

The kitchen is fragrant with the aroma of frying taro and roast chicken. Upon Elizabeth's entrance, Hattie glances up from slicing mango and akee fruit at the wooden table to ask, "What you needin', Missus 'Lizbeth?"

"I just wanted to warn you--we've a guest for supper tonight."

Hattie chuckles. "Don't you worry 'bout that. There be plenty enough for the table tonight." She bends down to open the big oven doors, releasing a rush of heated, bread-scented air. "Must be nice, eh, havin' your man at home?"

"Yes, it's lovely," says Elizabeth absently. Then she sinks abruptly into the nearest chair, dropping her head into her hands.

"Bless you, missus," Hattie exclaims. "Why you go 'long so?"

"I don't know," she moans. "Hattie, I don't know what's wrong with me. Any good wife would be glad her husband is home and safe, and not..." No, she can't say _that_ , not even to Hattie, shouldn't even think it. "And not ask any more of him," she finishes.

"Ah." Hattie nods wisely. "Him don't sweet you right no more, then?"

Elizabeth looks away. "It's not that, really," she mumbles, although Hattie's not entirely wrong. Will still touches her, but less fervently and less often than he once did. "It's more that, well, I don't believe he...sees me, when he looks at me. Truly sees me, I mean. It's almost as if we're strangers, sometimes." She stops, forces a laugh. "Listen to me...I think I'm talking a lot of nonsense, Hattie. Don't pay me any mind."

"Don't know 'bout that," avers the cook. "Me Mam, she use to say, _fire de a Mus-mus tail, him tink a cool breeze._ "

Elizabeth puzzles over this cryptic pronouncement for a moment. "Mus-mus...?"

"It mean, him don't see what badness happen in his own yard, 'til it burn him." And Hattie adds bluntly, "It mean him a fool, Missus 'Lizbeth."


	4. By Starlight

* * *

**III.  
** **By Starlight**

_Down by the salley gardens  
my love and I did meet  
she passed the salley gardens  
with little snow-white feet.  
She bid me take love easy  
as the leaves grow on the tree  
but I, being young and foolish  
with her did not agree._

"Down By the Salley Gardens"

* * *

Will and the Governor have carried their discussion of trade law and commerce at sea from sitting room to dining table. Elizabeth, playing the good wife, endeavors to speak only when spoken to; behind her lowered gaze, she watches them intently. Two kind, earnest, beloved faces, yet she finds herself searching them for clues to truths they're not telling her...

Only Hattie seems to notice her mistress's uncharacteristic silence; the cook gives Will a sour look as she sets the roast hen in front of him with a bit more force than is perhaps necessary, and stalks back to the kitchen. Will appears mildly taken aback, but sets about carving the bird without comment. Meanwhile, the Governor, oblivious to this minor ripple in domestic waters, launches into an account on Spanish merchants' flagrant disregard for treaties and their depredations upon competing British vessels.

"It's certainly a concern," Will agrees. "But of late, the privateers roaming the Windward Passage have been beaten back quite effectively by," he hesitates fractionally, "by our men. There have been several significant victories in the past few months...or so I've been told, that is."

"Privateers?" Elizabeth puts in, despite her resolve to stay quiet; this is the first really interesting tidbit of news that they have discussed. "Pirates, you mean."

"Not exactly," Will corrects her. "These men carry letters of marque. They are protected and sponsored by rival Crowns, and they attack and loot as they are ordered. In this case, most of those orders are issued by Spain, and most of the attacks are against ships flying British colors."

"I know the definition," Elizabeth says, irritated. "My point is that I hardly see the difference. Letter of marque or no, they still pillage and plunder just the same, don't they? It seems silly to me that the actions of a brigand who happens to possess a piece of paper with a blob of wax on it should be considered lawful, while other men must hang for the same offenses." _Even good men_ , she amends privately, thinking of Jack Sparrow.

"We still hang 'em if we catch 'em," says Will darkly.

"Not if they're _our_ brigands, we don't!"

"Yes, well, that is interesting news indeed, William," the Governor says hastily, by way of heading his daughter off. He glances pointedly at Will. "If you don't mind, my boy, perhaps we might have a serious chat about this business after supper. I should like a detailed report of--well, of any information or rumors you have heard."

"Yes, of course," Will says, and falls silent. Elizabeth realizes that she has been effectively shut out of the conversation. She smiles grimly at her plate, unsurprised.

In the ensuing pause, the Governor clears his throat loudly, and changes the subject. "Elizabeth, my dear, I believe I haven't yet told you that I'm riding up to Spanish Town on the morrow. Perhaps you would like to come along? William said you might enjoy a change of scene."

"Did he," she says, arching an eyebrow at him. "How very thoughtful of you, Will, darling...I'm sorry, Father, I really must beg off this time. Will sails in only two days, you know, and I would feel simply dreadful if I was not here to see him off."

Will says earnestly, "If you wish to go, Elizabeth, there's no reason why you shouldn't--"

"No, no!" she protests merrily. "I wouldn't dream of it. And after all, there's my health to think of! It's such a _long_ ride, and--" she affects a delicate shudder-- "there are snakes."

Will frowns. "This is Jamaica. There are snakes everywhere." He hasn't caught onto her feigned superficiality at all; and she's not being in the least bit subtle about it.

"No, perhaps you are right, Elizabeth," her father says. "Those native townships along the road are most unsanitary. Better you should remain safely in Port Royal, after all."

"Oh, yes," says Elizabeth. Her smile makes her cheeks ache. " _Much_ better."

* * *

They bid Governor Swann goodnight at the foot of the porch steps; as the coach rattles off down the road, Will turns to his wife. "You seem fatigued, my dear. Are you ready to go up to bed?"

She doesn't answer. He realizes she has wandered a little distance into the garden, trailing her fingers through white sprays of night-blooming jasmine, her head bowed as if in contemplation.

He follows her; slipping his arms around her slim waist from behind, he presses a kiss to the fine porcelain curve of her neck just above her collar. But she stiffens at the contact and pushes at his wrists to free herself, breaking out of his loose embrace and moving away from him into the perfumed shadows beneath the hugely overgrown bougainvillea. The thing is gigantic, dominating the front of the house; he suggests having it cut back every time he comes home, but Elizabeth refuses to allow it, saying its shade keeps the house cool in the hottest part of the day. _Let it grow as it pleases_ , she insists each time.

"Elizabeth?" he says cautiously. "Did I do something wrong?"

Her words are low, deliberate. "You invited Father to dine with us tonight on purpose, didn't you? To...defuse me?"

"No!" The thought _had_ crossed his mind that the Governor might provide a buffer against any lingering pique or awkward questions to which his wife might be inclined; but to admit that strikes him as entirely unwise, just now. "I assumed that you would like to see your father; he wanted to see you. I thought you would be pleased."

"I see," she says, her motionless form half-visible among thick-hanging clusters of bougainvillea blossoms. "It didn't, you know."

"Didn't what? Please you?"

"Defuse me."

"But..." He tries and fails to catch a glimpse of her expression, sees only one slender shoulder; her back is to him. "Are you really still angry with me? When I left, I...I supposed you had forgiven me."

" _Why_?" She rounds on him, face pale as jasmine in the dark. "You didn't ask me to forgive you!"

"I thought it would go without saying," he says helplessly. "Anyway, I'm asking now."

She raises an eyebrow.

He sighs. "Please forgive me?"

"No."

"For God's sake, Elizabeth." He cannot conceal his rising exasperation. "What more do you want of me?"

Behind the screen of drooping branches, he hears her snort. "To start with? An apology."

"I'm sorry." Then, knowing his own folly, he nevertheless adds obstinately, "May I know what, exactly, I am apologizing for?"

Silence. After a moment, she steps out into the moonlight; her eyes, meeting his, are as remote as her voice. "Among other things...you lied to me."

He cannot meet those eyes; he studies the ground between his feet and hers. "I am sorry for that, truly I am," he says, meaning all of it, not just the lie to which she refers. "It's just...I don't want you to worry about our finances. And now look at you." He tries to adopt a light, teasing tone. "I can see you worrying."

"Will," she says softly; she makes it sound like a warning. "We are supposed to do these things together. Even worry. In case you have forgotten...this is a marriage."

He flushes, stung. "I could never forget that--!"

"Really?" she says evenly. "Because I must admit, I myself forget, sometimes."

"Elizabeth..." He stares at her. "How could you say such a thing?"

"Because it's the truth."

"I told you, I wish I could be home more often..."

"But you can't. I know." Her lips twist wryly. "And you wish you could take me with you."

"I can't..."

"Of course not."

He reaches for her hand. "Elizabeth, my love..."

"Don't," she says. "Not right now, Will."

He drops his arm, folds both across his chest. "What would you have me do, then?" he asks at last.

"I think..." She looks away from him, out across the garden to where the sea can just be seen beyond the cliff-edge, glimmering silver under the moon. "I need to walk, a little. Take the air. The house feels very close tonight. Too many walls..."

"We could stroll down to the beach," he suggests, relieved.

"No, Will," she says gently; her expression is almost pitying. "Leave me, please. I appreciate the offer, but just now...I'd rather be alone."

"I see." He doesn't; but there doesn't seem to be much else to say. Her request was so matter-of-fact, so formal. "Good night, then," he says, and is surprised to find himself on the verge of anger.

"Good night," his wife says quietly. "I'll be upstairs in a little while."

He turns from her, climbing swiftly up the verandah steps. He's nearly reached the front door when he thinks he hears her say, "I'm sorry, Will." But when he glances back, she appears lost in thought again, still gazing at the luminous ocean.

A beautiful girl standing in a moonlit garden, surrounded by flowers: it's a peaceful scene, one that shouldn't make him feel like this, shouldn't irritate and frustrate him; shouldn't make his heart ache so.

"I'm sorry, too," he mutters to the doorjamb. "More than you know, Elizabeth..."

He wishes things could be different, too. But why, and how, she couldn't possibly understand.

* * *

Elizabeth watches him go, his shoulders hunched as if against a storm.

_Oh, Will. You always were a bad liar._

She's still not sure what he's lying about, but she intends to find out.

Standing very still, she lets the small rustling noises of the night seep into her awareness, hearing behind those noises, all the time, the faint sound of the ocean. An owl calls softly, somewhere close by. Elizabeth tips her head back to stare up at the stars, feeling herself nearly as cold and distant as they seem.

In fact, wasn't there a high-born lady up there somewhere?

Jack Sparrow told her about stars, once, the shapes they formed and the stories they told, lying beside her on a white beach as the embers of a bonfire burned out. She remembers this hazily, as if it happened in some other lifetime, many more years ago than three; perhaps she only imagined it. Cassiopeia...was that the name he said? No; Cassiopeia was the Queen. Elizabeth knew the story; she'd read it long ago. The maiden's name was Andromeda, the Chained Lady. Searching the sky, she finds herself listening to a memory.

_See, just there, love? No,_ and he'd leaned over her, taking her wrist to trace the figure in the sky. _There. A fair young maid...aye, all in white, her hair tangled by the sea wind_ \--his fingers fluttered, lifting a lock of her own salt-roughened hair briefly-- _with her arms outstretched, calling for her lover to rescue her._ He laughed, then. _If it were you, though, love, you'd be rescuing him instead, now wouldn't you?_

Around her, the wind picks up, stirring the foliage of her beloved bougainvillea: a stiff nor'wester off the open sea, bearing the sharp, wild smell of salt and ozone. It rouses her from her reverie, and she flares her nostrils, breathing deep; the cool air awakens a restlessness in her blood, a yearning for movement. Pulling her thin shawl closer around her, she makes her way to the cliff's edge, climbing among the rocks until she can see the narrow strip of sand below and the dark ocean stretching away to meet the darker horizon.

She finds herself thinking suddenly of Mrs. Gage's ghost. Had she fallen, or been pushed? Or perhaps the walls of her own house became the bars of a prison cell, a cage within which she was trapped and domesticated, until the balcony walk seemed to be the only way out, the best way. If Elizabeth squints her eyes, she can picture her there, a slender form in a white night-dress balancing on the iron rail, suspended momentarily over empty space before the nor'wester rises and claims her for the sea...

Inhaling sharply, she steps back, away from that edge.

When she goes up to bed, finally--thinking to kiss away that lost-little-boy look Will gave her as he turned to leave the garden, to run her hands along his body until he looks at her again as a man looks at his wife--he is already asleep. His left hand lies palm up on the counterpane like an unanswered question, revealing the long ragged scar there; she lays her own palm against it so that her own scar aligns with his, a reminder of the things they've shared: a childhood, a cursed gold medallion, a brush with death that grinned at them in moonlight.

She can't help wondering if their scars are all that remains of that shared life.

* * *

All the stars are out tonight. Captain Jack Sparrow tips his head back and hangs onto the wheel to keep himself upright as the movement puts him off his precariously maintained balance. The stars spin deliciously, fueled by half a flask or so of rum, and he laughs out loud.

They've had a very good run of luck this last fortnight, very good indeed; tonight, having gained a small fortune this morning in silks and spices without the loss of any lives, he's celebrating. He lifts his flagon skyward, toasts the watching stars.

"Aye, this is the life..."

The crew hardly give him a glance. They're used to him talking to the sky, the Pearl, the sea--all manner of things that don't talk back. Most aren't quite sure whether Jack knows that a good proportion of his conversations are one-sided. He prefers it that way; he's found there's great advantage to be had in appearing not to have all his wits about him. It's like carrying a knife in one's boot, or a card up one's sleeve. Winning is all about what one's opponent doesn't see coming; and the fewer people there are who know how the trick is played, the fewer there are to give the game away.

There are one or two trusted members of the crew, however...Anamaria Vargas, for one, and perhaps Joshamee Gibbs, for another...who do know that Captain Sparrow has a far better grip on reality than he lets on.

Well, somewhat better. Maybe not too much.

Sanity is highly overrated, really.

Jack sways as the _Pearl_ crests a wave, and pulls himself back up to something close to vertical. Drapes himself over the wheel, and regards his crew with lazy benevolence. They aren't listening. Well, that's fine. The _Pearl_ listens. The _Pearl_ always listens.

Aye, and sometimes she does answer.

He sings to her softly.

"We're devils and black sheep and really bad eggs..."

He swings the wheel to the right a little, eyeing the stars to gauge the _Pearl_ 's course.

"Drink up me hearties yo ho!"

As he often does when he sings this particular song and when he's had enough rum to descend into memory or even nostalgia...for while most men drink to forget, he drinks, just as often, to remember...he finds himself thinking of another night under the stars, some years ago, and the first time he heard that song.

Was it three years ago now, or four? Funny how he still recalls that night so clearly, as if it were yesterday. Especially since they'd both been at least three sheets to the wind, and maybe more sheets than that. Especially since so many more eventful nights had passed since, with various women in various places, under the auspices of varying qualities and quantities of alcohol. He doesn't remember their faces or their names, doesn't remember the they said to each other; all those other nights blur together, unremarkable.

But he can easily picture Miss Elizabeth Swann, the governor's daughter, slim and proud and insufferably self-satisfied, standing on a virgin beach in her sea-stained white shift and telling him off in a manner that was at once magnificent and maddening.

Delightful girl.

_Honestly._

Unchecked, his mind presents him with the exact shades and contours of her skin in firelight, the gleam of her full lower lip, the precise angle to which her eyelids fall when weighted by illicit rum, the teasing echo of her voice. The lazy sensuality that emerged in her drunken state surprised him, coming from a lass so obviously naive to the ways of men... _real_ men, that is, not just the pansies, eunuchs and tight-arses to whose courtship she was accustomed.

Not that young Will Turner was any of those things, of course.

Thoughtful, he takes another swig of rum, ruminating on his last conversation with young Will. _Hah._ Rum, ruminating...certainly no coincidence that the one word begins with the other...

* * *

It had been last fall in the Floridas that Jack had run across Will Turner attempting to argue with a Spanish harbor master in sadly limited Portuguese. He didn't recognize the lad for a few moments; Will had aged overmuch in the two-odd years since Jack's famous escape from Port Royal. Then he heard the plaintive tone rise behind him, laced with a horrendous attempt at a Buenos Aires accent, and the growing anger in the voice of the official. He wheeled around and inserted himself into the center of the dispute.

"Pardon the intrusion," he said smoothly. "Good to see you again, Will. Now, if you'll allow me..."

He placated the harried Spaniard with a few well-chosen words in the correct language, hampered by a barrage of questions from Will and aware that Turner's companions were looking askance at one another. When the harbor master finally left them, satisfied, Jack threw an arm around his friend's shoulders.

"The last thing I need today is you bringing the whole bloody Armada down upon us before I've finished me business here." He steered him along the dock toward the town. "Come along, lads, drinks are on me this morning. I'm feeling generous."

"You made that look so easy," Will complained. "And you're hardly the respectable-looking one out of the pair of us."

"Wellll," Jack drawled. "It's time you learned that good looks won't get you too far in a place like this. Although mine are always an asset, no doubt...But, no, in this business it's much more about what you know..." he waved an arm at the tavern across the street, "who you know, and most importantly, who you _are_. However," he added thoughtfully, "in this case the poor blighter was likely just plain overjoyed to be addressed in Spanish rather than pidgin Brazilian."

Will's face fell. "I thought that Brazilians...oh, never mind. What brings you this far north, Jack?"

He raised a warning finger. " _Captain_ Jack...and, that's none of your law-abiding, moralizing concern, young Will. Can't have you jeopardizing your respectability, now, can we?"

An odd look passed over Will's honest features; then he grinned. "That's Captain Turner to you."

"Is it, now?" Jack said, startled. He'd thought he'd heard Will's associates say something like that, but he hadn't thought he'd heard them right. He peered quizzically at "Captain" Turner; Will's grin wiped away much of the age Jack had previously noted, but that guarded expression remained in his eyes. _Well, I'll be damned. Lad's lost his innocence after all._ "That's interesting...Where's your vessel then, Captain?"

"Right out there," Will said proudly, pointing to the harbor.

Jack stared in disbelief. He'd admired the sleek, newish carrack on the bay when they'd rowed in earlier, but he'd pegged it for a Spanish trader with a nobleman's wealth behind her.

"That ship." He glanced back at Will, then out at the bay. "That's _your_ ship?"

"Aye," said Will, still grinning like a boy. "The _Freedom_. She's mine."

They had paused in the yard of the _taberna_ , the Delfin Oro.

"The _Freedom_ , eh."

"Elizabeth named her."

_Ah_. "She did, did she." Jack glanced once more at the clean white sails. "Well, my lad, it seems you haven't done half-bad for yourself, I must admit. I assume you claim legitimate title to her, too. Aye, naturally. And since you're obviously dying to brag about it, let's find ourselves a berth inside this charming establishment of vice and debauchery and get us some refreshments while you do so. I've got me own reputation to maintain, after all."

They settled themselves at a back table, and Jack invested in liquid fortification for Will's men, most of whom had already congregated around the group of fully-painted ladies lounging at the bar.

"So how is the lovely Elizabeth these days?" Jack inquired. He took a judicious swig of his rum, rolling the burning liquor over his tongue appreciatively. Not bad, not bad at all. Those Spaniards certainly knew the finer points of distillation.

Will's expression clouded somewhat. He sipped his drink warily, swallowed, grimaced. "She's all right, I suppose," he said somberly. "All things considered."

"Married her yet?"

"Aye. Last spring." Will stared into his flagon, that troubled look still haunting his countenance.

"Well, what's the long face for, then?" A sudden thought occurred to him. "You really are a eunuch, aren't you. Won yourself a woman like that, and incapable of bedding her properly? That's a shame, lad, a damn shame..."

Will flushed and glared, reminding Jack why the boy was such entertaining company. Couldn't help but rise to even the most blatant attempts to bait him. That particular barb worked every time. Made him wonder, really.

"Don't speak of her that way. She just...hasn't been well, is all."

Jack tapped his forehead knowingly. "Gone a bit touched, has she? Always suspected that was a liability with her. Never did strike me as an extraordinarily rational gel, y'know."

"No, it's not like that," Will snapped. "Just lay off her, why don't you, Sparrow."

He lifted his hands, palms out, in mock defense. Clearly, the topic of Elizabeth was an unhappy one at the moment. "Terribly sorry, mate...but the truth's the truth. Now, do tell," he added hastily, as Will looked prone to violence, "how did you come to possess such a fine ship as that... _Captain_ Turner?"

"Wedding present," said Will shortly. "One of two."

"Two what? Two _ships_?" He'd be damned if the lad hadn't surprised him twice already today, and it wasn't even noon yet.

Will swirled the liquid in his cup. He hadn't drunk any of it since that first sip. "Yes, two ships from the pocket of Governor Swann, and an order...excuse me, a gentle suggestion...that I use them to make a seemly living for the sake of milady."

Jack looked at him sharply, beginning to understand the weight that had settled over his friend's shoulders in such a short time. "Ah. If you can't make the lady wed a Commodore, you can still make a Commodore out of the man she weds."

"Something like that."

"And indebt that man to your Grace in the process..." Jack mused. "Aye...the Governor's cleverer than he looks, i'n he." He finished off his rum in one long swallow and clapped Will on the back. "Come now, drink up. Look on the bright side. You've got yourself two bonny ships...and the bonny lass...out of the bargain. Commodore."

Will winced. "I'll stick with 'Captain,' thanks."

"Should have gone pirate, lad, while you still had the chance." He waved over the tavern wench, a black-haired, ivory-skinned little thing who flashed him a beguiling smile as she leant to refill his drink. "Thanks, love..." He followed her progress across the room, noting with appreciation the sway of her shapely hips and then flinching at the resounding slap she bestowed upon the hand of an overly familiar patron. "Nice girl, don't you think?"

"Aye, she looks to be your type of strumpet."

Jack shook a finger at him. "Must ask you to be more respectful when speakin' about my lady friend, Turner."

Will actually laughed at that, to Jack's relief. Then he pushed back his stool and stood up. "I'll leave you to her, then. I've got errands to run and a galley to restock...thanks for the drink."

"You didn't even finish it," Jack growled, offended on the rum's behalf.

Will pushed it over to him. "It's all yours."

"Give my love to Elizabeth," Jack called after him. "And, Will?"

"Aye...what?"

"A bit of advice." Jack lifted the cup in farewell. "Find yourself a better interpreter."

* * *

He stirs at the helm. Poor Will. He doesn't envy the life of a merchant shipper, especially not one beholden to his own father-in-law. And he knows that though Will would gladly and foolishly die for Mrs. Turner, nee Swann, such lesser sacrifices as he's been forced to make must rankle the lad's idealistically romantic sensibilities.

Perhaps he should stop by Port Royal sometime in the near future, and find out whether old Bootstraps' son has yielded to his heritage yet and turned privateer. And pay a call to his lady wife, too.

His lips curve up in a slight smirk as he imagines her reaction.

Or rather, her wide range of possible reactions. He's never managed to quite suss out the lady in question. One minute she'd be on your side, the next she'd be burning your valued cache of liquor; and when your future hung in the balance, the devil only knew whether she'd rush to your defense with blazing eyes and that quick tongue of hers, slap you across the face and toss a few choice expletives your way for good measure, or merely smile beatifically as you were hauled off to the gallows.

Delightful girl, indeed.

He shakes his head, as if trying to rid his mind of some unsettling thought.

They really are an interesting pair, those two. It has been easy enough to see which one of them wore the proverbial trousers, right from the beginning.

_Poor Will, indeed!_

He takes out his compass and flips it open, waiting for the needle to cease spinning wildly and settle on a direction.

When it does, he says, thoughtfully, "Ah." Then he frowns and shakes the instrument a little, watches the needle swing purposefully round again and halt, trembling, at the same point as before.

"If you say so, my friend." He shrugs and snaps the case shut. "Never steered me false before. Right, then..."

Humming to himself, he adjusts the Pearl's bearing slightly more south-west, setting a course for the Windward Passage that separates Hispaniola and Cuba, beyond which lies the little island of Jamaica and the famed merchant city of Port Royal.


	5. The Sailing of the Lady Swann

**IV.  
** **The Sailing of the _Lady Swann_**

_Now in sailor's clothing young Jane did go  
dressed like a sailor from head to toe..._

 

\--"The Female Smuggler"

* * *

"'Tis time to hoist anchor, Cap'n Turner! We oughtn't delay much longer, if we be wantin' to keep the wind's favor."

Will ignores the boatswain's warning shout; he scans the docks on either side of the _Lady Swann_ with increasing anxiety. "I told her we'd be sailing on the early tide," he mutters.

His first mate, Gabriel McBride, places a huge, calloused hand on his shoulder. "We canna' wait longer, laddie. Yon tide be turnin'."

"She said she'd be here," he insists. "She always comes to see me off, Gabe. You know that."

"Aye, that she does, Cap'n." McBride leans over the portside rail beside Will; his canny glance at the younger man assesses the situation rightly. "Ye been havin' some troubles with the missus, I take it."

"We had something of a disagreement the other day," Will admits. "But I didn't think she was angry anymore. She was in very good spirits last night."

McBride chuckles, and slaps him on the back. "Good spirits, eh? Canna' be all bad then, me lad. Mrs. McBride disna' do a wife's duty when I come home to her bed. Has naught but scolding for me these days, she does...that's what keeps me at sea, ye know."

Will blushes. "That's not what I meant," he tries to explain, despite the memory--still fresh in his mind--of his wife slipping naked into their bed sometime after midnight. He was half-asleep, but Elizabeth was quite...insistent, loving him fiercely and thoroughly, as if determined to memorize every inch of his body with hands and mouth. He let her have her way with him; her bold inventiveness in such pursuits still manages to shock him sometimes, but he has learned that it is decidedly in his own interest not to protest her unladylike notions about bedplay.

Remembering those notions, he feels his face grow even hotter; his first mate's laughter becomes uproarious.

"Let's away, gentlemen, look lively!" Will shouts, avoiding McBride's knowing grin. "Set topsails! Come on, get moving!"

He allows himself one backward look at the docks, where a few of the crew's wives and families are gathering, handkerchiefs at the ready in the women's hands. But Elizabeth is still not there. No proud, slender figure, no auburn-lighted hair; and her eyes, always tearless but full of longing, are nowhere to be seen.

She's the only wife who never carries a handkerchief to these occasions.

Will sighs, and turns his own gaze back to the sea.

She really didn't seem angry last night, he thinks, though they did not breakfast together this morning. He had awakened briefly, sometime before dawn, when Hattie knocked urgently at the door; rolling over groggily in the dark, he mumbled a question, and Elizabeth answered from across the room: "It's all right, Will--it's just Mary's time, and I promised I'd attend at her childbed."

"Who's Mary?" he slurred.

"One of the ladies from town...Don't worry, darling, it's only women's business. Go back to sleep."

He willingly complied; he did not even hear her go out. At sunrise, he woke again to find a note folded neatly on the pillow beside him.

 _Forgive me, darling. I'll be there when you sail, if I can get away_ , it read in her graceful script. _All my love._ It was signed _your Elizabeth._ He'd smiled, and tucked it into the breast pocket of his coat.

Perhaps that's all her absence signifies: that her friend's travail is proving difficult, and she has not been able to slip away long enough to come down to the docks. Will knows little of such things as childbirth, but this sounds plausible enough to him.

McBride pounds his Captain's back again on his way down to the main deck, startling him out of his reverie.

"Dinna worry, laddie," he booms. "Ye never can tell with womenfolk. Tha's fickle as yon ocean herself, and just as moody. She'll be waitin' in a few months when she sees our sails on the horizon, ye can be sure of that."

Will nods, abstracted. Above him the sails unfurl, and the _Lady Swann_ shudders as the wind fills them. In a moment of rare fancy, he imagines that she shudders with pleasure at being on her way, free again and eager to meet the waves.

He shakes his head. Ship's a thing of wood, canvas and caulk, no more. The blasted sun must be getting to him after all these years. He best be careful, or he'll soon be as daft as Jack Sparrow, the man who taught him his first lessons about sail and sea: _A ship's just like a woman, lad. No two alike, an' with the right touch she'll do just about anything for you, anything you ask her to..._

This makes him think of Elizabeth again, and he frowns. She will forgive him for not bringing her with him...won't she?

Her restlessness is understandable, but he can't forget that first ill-fated voyage they took together, young and foolish as any two newlyweds. When he came down to her quarters and found her writhing and muttering, senseless with fever, her too-bright eyes blank and unseeing in her delerium, he was gripped by a kind of dread such as he'd never felt before. These days, he revisits that fear whenever he considers taking her with him; even more when he considers the danger he's sailing into, the shameful deeds the _Lady Swann_ will almost certainly witness during her time at sea.

It's bad enough that the sickness left Elizabeth barren, that she bled close to death when she miscarried four months into her first and only pregnancy, that same terrible fortnight. He'll have nothing of her left if he loses her; he leaves her behind so he can have faith that he'll see her again.

Not until two nights ago, when the distance in her voice left him cut adrift under the bougainvillea amid shifting patterns of moonlight and shadows, has it occurred to him that there might be other ways to lose her...

But he must not dwell on that now. Better to take Gabriel's advice, and give his wife's restless mood time to dissipate.

He turns his attention to the task at hand as the harbor falls back in the distance, and the _Lady Swann_ takes to the open seas before a brisk and favorable wind.

* * *

Curled up in the back of the hold behind a collection of old crates and barrels, Elizabeth Turner feels the ship tremble, hears the anchor-chain creak upwards; her heart gives its own little lurch at the sound. Her mind is a jumble of racing thoughts and emotions: excitement, triumph, and misgiving in equal parts. She can hardly believe she's actually pulled this off.

Most of the previous day has been spent in preparation, beginning with a visit to the Governor's young clerk, Byron Wallace, who worships her from afar in much the same way that Will used to when he was only a blacksmith's apprentice. Byron proved more than happy to be entrusted with the upkeep of her house and the supervision and payment of the servants after she reassured him that no, His Grace would not object to her plans; of course he assumed that Will already knew, and she allowed him to go on thinking so.

She puzzled for some time over how to escape the house early enough without arousing Will's suspicions. It was Hattie who solved this problem for her; Elizabeth, intending to tell the servants only that she would be away for a little while, found herself pouring out the whole wild scheme to the cook while Hattie listened, chuckling and plying her mistress with lemonade and tea biscuits. "Just tell him you goin' to a birthin'," Hattie said, when Elizabeth mentioned her dilemma. "Everyone know babies don't wait for daylight. And he won't ask no questions 'bout that, neither. Them men, They never do."

Later, Elizabeth bid her husband farewell in her own fashion; and if he noticed and thought it strange that she could not bring herself to look directly into his eyes, he gave no indication. She lay wakeful beside him, afterwards, practically vibrating with anticipation; when she finally heard the big grandfather clock chime the fourth hour in the hall downstairs, she could wait no longer, and crept out of bed to dress in the dark. Hattie's complicity made it all quite simple: the knock at the door, the whispered message. Will half-woke, making an inarticulate noise of inquiry; then, at her assurances, he quickly sunk back into the deep sleep of the blissfully ignorant.

She feels a mischievous smile tug at her lips. She hasn't done anything this exhilarating in far too long.

 _Or this stupid,_ she admonishes herself. _A grown woman, running away like a child. I ought to be quite ashamed of myself._

Irredeemably unashamed, she pulls the boy's cap down further over her head and shoves a wayward curl back under the band, looking down at herself critically. She makes a rather convincing young man, she decides, with her breasts bound tight against her chest, an old, somewhat shabby pair of boots on her feet, much-mended breeches and waistcoat, and a nice layer of grime rubbed over her fair skin. She knows she never really gained back the weight she lost to that infamous and near-fatal fever, making it much easier to conceal her femininity, though it's not as if she can wander about the _Lady Swann_ at her leisure. Regardless of how unbelievably thick in the head Will Turner might be, he can't be so oblivious that he'll fail to recognize her face, dirty or not. She'll have to be very careful to avoid him, at least for a few days, until they're far away enough from Port Royal that he won't just bring the ship about and deliver her home again.

The rest of the crew, however...

It was unexpectedly easy to sneak on board in the pre-dawn bustle of their preparations. In fact, she didn't even have to sneak; she discovered years ago that if she walked like she had every right to be somewhere, everyone assumed she was exactly where she belonged. The technique served her just as well today as it used to in her childhood, and provided exactly the same sort of illicit thrill.

It will be the journey itself that will present the greatest challenge. She has brought a rucksack full of provisions and several flasks of water, but she'll have to improvise a chamber pot, and bathing of course is out of the question.

She reminds herself that it won't be the most uncomfortable voyage nor the most distasteful accommodations she has ever endured. At least all the sailors on the decks above are alive. Flesh and blood seamen, however crude they might be, are greatly preferable to cursed pirates, and not likely to come up with the idea of sacrificing her to heathen gods.

Still, she wishes that she could stand up there at the rail, lean over the stern and watch the lovely isle of Jamaica fade into a green haze behind them. Say a proper goodbye to blasted Port Royal and a proper hello to the blue horizon.

No matter. She's well and truly quit of her private hell now. Ostensibly, of course, her goal in this venture is to discover whatever it is that Will Turner has been hiding from her; or that is what she's been telling herself as she made her preparations. Secrets for secrets, lies for lies. But those concerns and resentments have ebbed away for now, replaced by an exultant sense of liberation. Whatever lies ahead for her may not be objectively better than the life she's left behind, but it will, at least, be something new.

She rests her head back against the hull. She's missed this, the rhythm of the waves, the steady motion of the ship around her. The sensation comforts her, as it did the first time she ever sailed, when she and her father had left behind forever the cold, filthy spring of London and the big house that had become nothing to Weatherby Swann but an incessant reminder of his beloved wife, and set out for a new home in the New World. Elizabeth had cried bitterly for her mama every night until the first night on the American Queen. But that evening at bed-time she took out the mother-of-pearl brooch that bore Cecily Swann's likeness, kissed the image gently, placed it under her pillow, and fell asleep in the arms of the ocean.

She hasn't cried much since.

She puts those memories out of her mind, along with the twinge of regret she refuses to feel and the unknown future she's sailing toward, and closes her eyes, allowing herself to be lulled to sleep by the rocking of the _Lady Swann._

Her last conscious thought, as she slips into the first dreamless slumber she's enjoyed in over two years, is something like: _You must be daft, Elizabeth Turner._

A voice from her past seems to answer her: _Aye, daft like Jack..._

And it's the happiest thought she's entertained in a long, long time.


	6. A Wet Sheet And A Flowing Sea

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **Author's Note** : The mizzen is the third mast from the bow and thus, I have assumed, the rearmost mast on the _Lady Swann._

**V  
A Wet Sheet and a Flowing Sea**

_There's a tempest in yon horned moon  
and lightning in yon cloud  
and hard the music, mariners  
the wind is piping loud  
the wind is piping loud, my boys!  
the lightning flashes free  
while the hollow oak our palace is  
our heritage the sea._

\--"A Wet Sheet and a Flowing Sea"

* * *

"Cap'n Turner!"

"Enter," calls Will, frowning as he endeavors to survive the harrowing daily adventure of shaving aboard ship with only a bowl of soapy water and an aging razor. It would be easier to let the beard grow; his wife has even urged him to do so. _Leave it_ , she begged him once, when he had just returned from a lengthy cruise, and had been chased home by hard weather all the way from Boston. _It makes you really dashing, Will. Like a regular pirate._

_Exactly_ , he'd retorted, and set to work until the scruffy scalawag in the mirror resembled a respectable merchant seaman once again.

It's Gabriel McBride's grizzled head, of course, not Elizabeth's glossy-haired one, that is now poking round the cabin door to interrupt his morning ablutions.

"I think ye'll be wanting to have a look at yon sky," Gabe says, and withdraws.

The first mate sounds troubled. Will puts aside his razor to dry his face hurriedly, and winces as he hits a raw spot on his chin. Ducking out of the great cabin onto the maindeck, he finds Gabe McBride standing at the bow, arms crossed, squinting at the eastern horizon. The sun has not yet lifted over the rim of the world, but the gathering clouds there glow an ominous blood-red above a glassy sea.

Will glances up at the sails, hanging limp and unstirred, and back at the crimson sky. "When did we lose the wind?"

"First light. Sudden-like." The old sailor licks a finger and holds it up, testing. "Nary a whisper...air's uncanny heavy too, can ye feel it?"

Indeed, the atmosphere is thick with humidity and a sense of forboding that vibrates against Will's skin, prickling at the back of his neck. "Something's coming," he agrees.

"Aye, and nothin' good, that's certain! Tis' gettin on to summer's end, and we all know well what that means..."

Will nods. "Hurricane season."

"I'm bound to tell ye, Cap'n, in all me years at sea, I've rarely seen a dawn as red as that sky yonder," says McBride. "I canna' be sure, but I fear we be in for no less than a devilish squall." He moves toward the hatch. "Best I go and wake the watches."

Will frowns at the preternaturally smooth ocean. "Let them sleep while they can, Gabe. With us becalmed like this, there isn't much we can do but wait."

"Aye, but there's much to say for bein' ready for the worst," says Gabe quietly. "And I'd wager me best boots we willna' wait long afore yon wind rises again with wicked vengeance, and yon sea tries her level best to take us all for a visit to Davy Jones."

* * *

The first real gust hits the ship broadside, throwing Elizabeth violently against the hull.

She lies still for a second, breathing hard, waiting for the wild pitch of the vessel to subside, but it only worsens. Thunder shakes the air; under it she hears the unearthly shriek of the wind, swelling and rising.

Since what she can only assume were the wee hours of the morning, she's huddled, wakeful and uneasy, in the oppressive darkness of the cargo hold; she should have recognized the tense, breathless atmosphere that signifies an approaching storm. She's lived in the Islands long enough to know the signs. But she's been too used to sleeplessness to question it these days.

The ship rocks again; one of the piles of crates behind which she's concealed herself topples over, missing her sprawled body by a few inches. She rolls, covering her face to protect it from the flying splinters, only to see the heavy barrels that she has pushed away from the side of the hold to form her hiding place sway and then slide precipitously towards her. With a gasp, she dives sideways as the barrels crash against the hull in the precise spot where she lay just a moment ago.

_I have to get out of here._

Her first attempt to get to her feet is thwarted by another onslaught of wind and the steep tilt of the ship as it climbs a wave. She hasn't, after all, gotten her sea legs back yet, and this is hardly the time she would have chosen to regain them.

She staggers finally to the foot of the hatchway steps, remembering at the last minute to restuff her unruly hair inside her cap, and half-stumbles, half-crawls up to the crew deck. Stopping to listen to the noise from above--faint shouts and orders, the snap of canvas against timber, and over it all the furious roar of the wind--she is forcibly bowled over by one of the men in his hurry to get topside. He pauses long enough to haul her to her feet.

"C'mon, laddie, cap'n wants all hands on deck--"

She's trapped now; she has no choice but to follow him, praying that she can stay clear of Will in the confusion of the storm.

In fact, the chaos above deck is more than she hoped for. It must be afternoon by now, but the clouds are so dense that it seems more like twilight, and the downpour is so torrential that she almost can't make out the bow some twenty feet ahead. A sheet of water drenches her, and she only knows it's seawater rather than rainwater because of the salt sting in her eyes. Half-blind, she barely manages to catch the heavy rope tossed her way before it smacks her in the face.

"Tie that off! Handsomely, now!"

She does her best, struggling a bit with the knot. _Drawn fast at least, if not handsomely,_ she thinks with grim humor. Then the deck seems to drop from beneath her; the ship plummets down into a trough, nearly leaving her behind in the crush of water that pours down in their wake. Abandoning all thought, she clings desperately to the thick coil until the wave drains away.

"You!" The shout comes from the starboard bow. She turns with a sinking heart; sure enough, Will Turner is looking straight at her. "You're light, boy! We need you up with Johnny on the mizzen-stays!"

_Thank Providence. He hasn't recognized me._ She steadies herself, tips her head back until she spots the dim figure far above her in the rigging, grappling with a sail that has come unfastened. As she hesitates, the whip-crack of breaking rope echoes like a gunshot. The loosed canvas fills and billows, and the _Lady_ leaps sideways in response.

"What are you waiting for, lad? Get up there!"

Elizabeth has shortened a sail or two in her life, despite the protests of either her father or her husband, and she's watched it done time and time again, but now...Soaked and shivering, buffeted by the gale, she knows that she's afraid.

_Fool!_ she berates herself. _This is your chance! Show him what you're made of. You can't fail him now._

_Can't fail yourself._

She grabs onto the mizzen ties, hoists herself upwards. Will pauses a second to make sure she heard and understood, but his attention shifts quickly elsewhere. She breathes a sigh of relief and scales the ropes, concentrating on hanging on tighter than she's ever held onto anything in her life.

_Good thing he didn't ask me to climb the main topsail._

Lightning flares, eerily illuminating the boiling clouds, followed closely by another throbbing growl of thunder. Another deluge of seawater swamps the ship. She rides the unstable braces, rain slapping at her face, while the _Lady Swann_ climbs the next heavy swell. Adrenaline surges through her body; strangely exhilarated, she laughs out loud into the raging wind.

She hasn't experienced real fear for years, faced the very real and imminent possibility of her own death, the realization that her life can be saved or lost by one split-second choice of action or one misstep. Not since before her marriage. Not since those splendid, terrible days that followed the coming of the _Black Pearl_.

She laughs again. She laughs because she _is_ alive, and because she's forgotten to appreciate that fact until this moment.


	7. Tortuga

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Author's Note** : According to the maps I've looked at and my rough estimate of sailing speeds, it would take about two or three days for a well-built ship of the right size to journey from Port Royal to Tortuga. Tortuga, for those what were wondering, is a small isle right off the coast of Haiti; Haiti and the Dominican Republic are today's French-speaking and Spanish-speaking halves, respectively, of the island that used to be known as Hispaniola and whose ownership was much-contested by the French and Spanish during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.

**Chapter VI  
Tortuga**

_There was a ship that sailed  
all on the Lowland Sea,  
and the name of our ship  
was the Golden Vanity  
and we feared she would be taken  
by the Spanish enemy  
as she sailed in the Lowland,  
Lowland, low  
as she sailed in the Lowland sea._

\--"The Golden Vanity"

* * *

The storm rages through the day and well into the night. By the time the winds have subsided to a light gale and Elizabeth has managed to slip back belowdecks, the adrenaline that surged through her has long since drained from her body, leaving her exhausted, cold, and unbelievably sore.

But she's walking steady now on the slippery, tilting boards, and under the fatigue that dulls her thoughts runs a current of fierce triumph. For a moment, she pictures herself walking into Will's cabin, pulling off her hat, shocking him into silence by her presence and the demonstration that she's not nearly as breakable as he believes. Would he then turn the _Lady_ around and sail her back to Port Royal? She finds she cannot imagine him doing anything else.

And yet...once, he would have been pleased just to see her, to have her near, whatever the circumstance. Once, they had fought side by side and he had looked at her with love and admiration in her eyes. Now he hardly looks at her at all, and when he does, it seems he does not see her, sees a lady wife and never just his Elizabeth; their secrets and silence lie between them like a veil, an ocean, a thousand leagues of distance.

She knows she should confront him, demand to know the extent of what he's kept from her. But not tonight. She will do it when they are farther out to sea, she resolves, when he cannot very well turn back, when he cannot escape her.

Instead, she filches a dry blanket from the crew's quarters and heads back down to her sanctuary in the hold, where she coaxes her weary muscles to cooperate just long enough to shift some of the fallen crates out of her way and locate her little bag of belongings. Then she curls up in the least damp corner, and falls almost instantly asleep.

* * *

"Do you think that's Hispaniola to the south of us?"

"I reckon 'tis," answers McBride, joining Will in his study of the long dark-green smudge on the rise between the grey sky and the grey sea.Visibility has improved this morning, although the waves are still choppy and the sky remains obstinately overcast. They've been sailing south-east under a gusty wind, hampered by their damaged mizzen-skysail, which came loose again during the night and tore itself to ribbons; they'll have to repair it before they attempt to journey much farther.

Will nods, adjusting their bearing slightly to the east. He strongly doubts that any port in Hispaniola represents a safe haven for re-rigging the _Lady Swann_.

McBride observes this, raises an eyebrow. "Tortuga, Cap'n?"

"Tortuga," Will affirms. "I'm afraid it's probably our only option."

"Aye, and ye'd probably be right," McBride says. "Yon Spanish Navy surely dinna take too kindly to us, last time."

Will laughs. "Yes, but I can't really blame them." He glances back over his ship, raising his voice to catch the attention of the men aloft. "Oy! Brace that yard to port and keep her running even!"

The last thing he wants to do today is run into any representative of the Spanish fleet at the helm of a partially-disabled ship, and with a tired crew fresh from their battle with the elements, he doubts they'd be able to put up much of a fight. He hopes their luck holds out. As McBride is too diplomatic to point out, it almost didn't last time. Thankfully, the mate had the presence of mind to bribe the harbor master in Monte Criste; otherwise they probably wouldn't have escaped undamaged.

"So who's the new ship's boy?" Will asks when their course has been modified to his satisfaction.

"That'll be John Castle's lad. Took him on at Port Royal, dinna I tell ye? Young 'un, but John swore by his Aaron. Said he's been itchin' to go afore the mast since he were in short pants. Good lad, too. Strong and hardy."

"He must be the one tied the stay that didn't stay." Will indicates the shredded jib on the mizzen.

McBride looks startled. "Ye let him up in yon aft tack under full gale?"

"My mistake," says Will, wry. "His first time at sea, I take it. Looks a bit delicate for a sailor, I thought...Well, the lad was brave, I'll give him that. Only faltered for a second. Still, I'm surprised Johnny never taught him how to lash a sail."

"Aye, and maybe he did, but laddie'd be a wonder to gather and tie her fast in that storm. She looked fair fouled from the bow, Cap'n."

Will, amused by the first mate's defense of the boy, agrees good-naturedly. "You're right, Gabe. It won't take overlong to hoist a new sail, anyway. I just wish it didn't have to happen so close to Hispaniola."

* * *

In the dank belly of the hold, Elizabeth dreams...

_She's drowning._

_The water closes over her head like a shroud as she sinks to the fine, silvery sand of the ocean floor. The silence is complete. She lies there, staring up to the glowing green surface far above her; she cannot move, cannot stir her limbs to swim for that sunlit ceiling. She feels curiously detached, as if her body is not her own, as if her impending death is no concern of hers._

_Air escapes from her lungs slowly, a stream of bubbles bright as jewels rising slowly away from her, one by one. Her hair, unbound, swirls around her face, seaweed swaying in the gentle current. Time pauses, lengthens.  
_

_Then strong arms enfold her, carry her upwards.The surface breaks for her, and she gasps until sweet air floods her lungs; the light blinds her momentarily, so that she cannot see the face of her rescuer. But she knows who it must be. She laughs in relief._

_"Will..." she breathes gratefully, turning to him, wrapping her arms around his neck. "Oh, Will..."_

_He smirks at her, gold flashing in the sunlight._

_**Not** Will, then._

_"Anytime, love..."_

_"You!" She pushes against his chest, but he holds on grimly. Holding her above water._

_"Aye, and who else?"_

_He's so close, wet body against wet body; his warmth invades her, quickening her blood, calling forth an answering heat low in her belly and between her thighs, and she demands almost wildly, "Where's Will?"_

_He heaves an exaggerated sigh, the very picture of severely tried patience. "Will's gone. Remember?"_

_"Gone--?" She stares at him, his dark laughing eyes and smug expression. "Jack, what are you talking about?"_

_"Come, come, darling, you were there, y'know." He tips his head to one side with a slight frown, appraising her. "Aye, your Will Turner is long vanished...sorry, love. He married the governor's daughter years ago. I must admit, I was rather disappointed in him..."_

_"Jack," she says, annoyed. "That was me. I **am** the governor's daughter."_

_"Really? You don't say!" He considers this, adopting a puzzled expression. "No...no, that's not right. You've always been a pirate, Lizzie. I'm sure of it."_

_"You're daft, Jack."_

_"That's as may be, love, but it doesn't mean I'm not right..."_

_And somehow they are no longer in the water, but standing on the deck of the **Black Pearl.** His arms are still around her; he looks down at her, and the intent in his gaze sends a shiver through her. He means to kiss her; she can see it._

_"You see, you and me, Elizabeth, we're just the same. It's just a matter of when you decide to admit it."_

_He lays one hand along her cheek, the other grasping her hip. Her pulse throbs in her ears, and elsewhere, a rising tide; but as he bends to kiss her, the **Pearl** gives a great lurch, and she falls and keeps falling into the dark, away from him towards the hard boards of the deck._

She awakens with a jerk, the deck of the _Lady_ hard against her hip and shoulder. Forward of her position in the hold, the anchor chain hangs taut, creaking gently. The lurch that woke her must have been the ship pulling to, she realizes, and sits up, listening intently to the movement above, the sounds of the _Lady Swann_ making berth.

Perhaps she's closer than she thought to discovering her husband's secret. She leans against the hull, waiting for the opportune moment, trying to ignore the dull ache of heat her guilty dream has woken in her loins. It's been too long since she and Will did anything more than share a bed together, she tells herself. That's all. It's not that she wants Jack, really; it can't be. She just wants...something that he represents.

Freedom, perhaps.

* * *

The _Black Pearl_ enters Tortuga Bay late in the afternoon. Jack planned to sail straight on to Port Royal, but they were blown some distance off course by the storm, and since they're in the vicinity he figures there's no harm in giving his deserving crew a chance to have themselves a spot of good old-fashioned debauchery before he leads them into a hornet's nest of British Navy men, ships and cannon on naught but a whim and the memory of a bonny lass.

"Jack, d'you see that beauty moored at our starboard quarter?" Anamaria calls to him from the deck. "She's no renegade, that's sure..."

He knows immediately which vessel she means; he noticed her as soon as they sighted the harbor: a graceful if somewhat storm-battered carrack, her clean white hull setting her apart from the disreputable huddle of smaller sloops--probably smugglers' vessels--and fishing boats. "Aye, most definitely, quite a pretty boat."

Ana springs lightly up to the poop deck, moving to stand beside him at the helm. "A merchant, maybe? Lost her way in that bit o' weather we ran into earlier?"

"No doubt." He studies the other ship with pursed lips. "Apparently she's torn a sail or two...Pity, that."

"Aye, a great pity," she agrees, a predatory gleam lighting her eyes. "Maybe we could help lighten their load for 'em. Better yet, we could take her. You still owe me a ship, y'know."

"Ana, love, if I'd have known what a devious mind you possessed, I'd have hired you the first time I met you."

"You might've anyway, if you weren't so busy plottin' to steal my boat at the time."

"And avoiding your sharp tongue."

"And gettin' me drunk."

It's an old argument, the points on either side familiar to both, and they fall into it easily, without real resentment. "You're better company when you're drunk, my dear." He considers her thoughtfully. "In fact, you're better company when _I'm_ drunk."

"Why, thank you, Captain. Just don't go thinkin' your pretty words and flattery'll get you anywhere with me."

"If you remember, I once tried to exert my not inconsiderable charm on you and was forced to give it up as a bad job."

"But not before you stole my boat. I remember. And I daresay I'd remember a good sight more if you hadn't tricked me into drinking all that blasted rum."

He blinks at her innocently. "I didn't trick you. You _wanted_ to show me that you could outdrink me."

"Aye, about as much as I wanted you to sail off with my _Jolly Mon._ "

"I only borrowed her. I fully intended to bring her back straight away."

"Which you didn't."

"It wasn't my fault that you didn't keep her seaworthy!"

"I left her hull uncaulked a'purpose. As insurance."

"Insurance against what?"

"Theft," Ana says, and her white teeth flash in a rare grin before she leaps down the steps to the quarter deck, the better to rap out orders to the men busy making the _Pearl_ ready to drop anchor.

"Aye, and that worked out well for you, didn't it," Jack calls after her.

"Would've worked more to my liking had she sunk sooner, and left you swimming to Port Royal!" Ana shouts back, almost good-naturedly.

Jack chuckles, turning away. He stares absently at the ship Ana as they head past where it rides at anchor. Then he suddenly straightens up and pulls out his spyglass, training it on the activity taking place on the carrack's forward deck; more specifically, on a man wearing a most ridiculous hat.

"Well, I'll be damned," he murmurs. "Anamaria! Deepest apologies, but I'm afraid I must ask you to refrain from any destruction, looting, or commandeering of that ship you were eyin'."

She scowls at him from the deck below, hands at her hips. "And why might that be?"

"It belongs to a friend of mine." He smiles back at her beatifically. "And thus, by natural progression, also a friend of yours, savvy?"

"Not sure I follow that one, Captain."

"You owe him, m'dear. He saved me neck, you know."

She favors him with a dark glare. "Then I reckon I owe him nothin' more dear than a good hard whack to the skull!"

Jack, casting his gaze skywards in silent appeal to whatever capricious gods of wind and sea might be in attendance, instead catches the beady, sympathetic eye of Cotton's Parrot, perched in the mizzen spar.

"She loves me, mate," he mutters defensively. "She's just got a funny way of showing it."

* * *

Elizabeth takes her leave of the _Lady Swann_ under the cover of dusk. The ship is mostly empty, except for a a few of the crew who are asleep below and a few who have gathered on the forward deck, smoking tobacco and laughing loudly. She assumes they're supposed to be standing guard, but they fail to notice the creak of the ropes as she lowers the boat to the water, and she hopes for Will's sake there are no real pirates lying in wait on this bay with an eye to steal his beloved vessel.

She has, in fact, no idea what bay this is, but the yellow lights glowing along the shore are certainly the lamps of a village, and she heads toward them. She wants nothing more dearly right now than a soft bed in a dry room, with a basin of water to wash in and perhaps a plate of warm food.

_Not entirely cut out for life at sea, are you, missy?_ sneers that annoying voice in her head.

_Not entirely cut out for living in the cargo hold, at least.  
_  
She lets the oars drop and massages the back of her neck, trying to rub out the crick in her neck that's developed over four nights sleeping on rough boards with only her little sack of belongings for a pillow. The boat drifts on a slow current, carrying her closer to land, and she can see the outlines of buildings, firelight dancing in their windows. From somewhere not too far away, she hears men's voices raised in a rowdy, off-key tune.

And she can smell the town, as well.

She wrinkles her nose. The worst parts of Port Royal never harbored anything even approaching this richly varied stench, a mixture of rotting fish, smoke, human waste, and under it all the rank, sweet odor of fermenting sugar-cane.

They must make rum here, she realizes. Lots of rum.

She scans the shore for a discreet docking place, finally deciding on a small inlet overhung by palms about a half-mile or so from the nearest structure. She doesn't want to have to answer any pointed questions from the inhabitants--especially as she has no idea what manner of people they might be, aside from the all-to-evident fact that they are not over-concerned with cleanliness.

Dragging the little skiff up to the beach, she shudders at the slimy touch of the water on her bare calves. It's worse than any bilge water she's encountered, even on the filthiest of vessels. Polluted by long years of human habitation, in addition to the waste of visiting ships, she supposes; she noticed on her way in that the _Lady Swann_ has company in the harbor, which is surprising for such a small port as this. Oddly enough, the silhouette of the other ship's sails looks vaguely familiar against the orange afterglow of sunset.

She slips and almost falls, letting out a muffled curse; the sand has abruptly changed to thick, dark mud by the inlet. Her feet quickly become coated with the fetid ooze.

Yes, she decides, a bath is definitely in order. She hopes that they have at least heard of such a thing as hot water in this dreadful place.

She leaves the boat half-concealed under the palm fronds and slogs up the beach toward the village, boots in hand, keeping to the shadows of the tree line. At the first row of buildings, she chooses a narrow alley between two high walls to stop and lace her muddy feet back into her shoes; once properly shod, she peers cautiously out into the haphazardly cobbled street--and immediately ducks back down between the buildings, her heart pounding.

Two men are strolling up the lane toward her, and one of them is Will Turner. She can't see much of the other man's face; but from his rolling gait it appears that he is more than a little drunk. As the pair draws closer, she begins to catch snippets of their conversation.

"Aye, how could I forget?" That easy chuckle is unmistakably Will's, and Elizabeth's heart contracts. She hasn't heard him laugh like that for a long time, possibly forever. How can it be that after three years of marriage, he still can't relax around her?

_I'm lucky he ever started calling me by my first name.  
_  
Now, his voice vibrates with humor and reminiscence. "Ah, Tortuga. What was it you said about this place back then?"

Tortuga! The famed sanctuary and hideout of every brigand, scoundrel, and privateer in the Caribbean...Elizabeth remembers reading about it in the texts she used to pore over as a little girl, when she was continually thirsty for more tales of pirates, treasure, and general lawlessness.

_It's worse than I thought, then._

Had Will become a _pirate?_

"Honestly can't recall," slurs the other man. "But I'm sure you do. Let's have it."

"I do, in fact. _That sweet, proliferous bouquet_ ," says Will, with the air of quoting some great philosopher.

"Ah,just so," says the other. "You were quite an impressionable lad, eh? Bit of a stick, in fact. You couldn't even look at the nightlife without blushing like a nun. Very entertainin' for me, it was."

"I'm sure it was. But not so much for me."

"Oh, you had a good enough time once the drink started flowing. I made sure of that. Couldn't let your first night in Tortuga go to waste, could I?"

"You could have. I would've felt much less like death the next morning, I expect."

They're passing by her hiding place now, and she draws further back into the shadows. Will's companion is closer to her; she sees him clearly for the first time, and her heart gives a funny little lurch.

_It can't be--!_

But it is.

Jack Sparrow hasn't changed much in the intervening years since that morning he escaped his execution at the Port Royal garrison. His long, tangled dark hair is still braided with beads and coins that glint in the orange light from the lamp burning across the way, although she rather thinks he's added a few trinkets to the mix, as well as a ring or two to those long, elegant fingers. And that hawkish profile, with its deep-set eyes and expressive mouth, could belong to no one else. He has, however, acquired a new hat.

Of course, she thinks. That's why the damn ship looked so familiar.

_It can't be coincidence. Will must have planned to rendezvous with the **Black Pearl** at Tortuga.  
_  
She sinks against the dirty wall, listening to their voices recede as they continue down the street, and wondering why Will never told her that he's been keeping company with Captain Jack Sparrow.

"So does the captivating Miss Giselle still make her home here, Jack?"

"I haven't the faintest idea." Jack sounds a little put out.

"What about Scarlet?" Will's tone is pointed. "Won't she be happy to see you?"

"Aye, _she's_ still here, and proprietress of a fine and flourishing establishment just a few streets over." His voice lowers to a growl that Elizabeth strains to hear. "But before you start formulating any ingenious ideas, mate, I'd best warn ye you'll be partaking of her merchandise all by your onesies. I'd prefer to forgo the lady's gentle ministrations altogether this time, savvy?"

Will laughs uproariously at that, but they are out of earshot now and she cannot hear his reply.

She ventures a quick glance in the direction they've gone, just in time to see them disappear around a corner. Then, checking to make sure the coast is now clear, she stealthily follows them. She's determined to find out what business has brought her husband here, to Tortuga of all places. Not only that, but she's fairly sure she just heard him carry on a conversation about prostitutes.

Her curiosity, she convinces herself, has nothing to do with the despicably fascinating Captain Jack Sparrow.


	8. The Faithful Bride

**VII.  
The Faithful Bride**

_She dress'd up in man's apparel,  
Man's apparel she put on;  
And she follow'd her true lover;  
For to find him she is gone.  
Then the Captain stepp'd up to her,  
Asking her: What's brought you here?  
I am come to seek my true love,  
Whom I lately loved so dear._

\--"William Taylor"

* * *

The sign above the door through which Captains Turner and Sparrow have vanished a few minutes past displays a picture of a fat, amiably-smiling lady in a white dress, under which runs a painstakingly-lettered caption: "The Faythfull Bryde."

Elizabeth looks into the painted lady's vacant, cow-like eyes, her lips twisting sardonically. If that is her appointed fate, no one can fault her from wanting to run away from it.

She takes a deep breath and steps over the threshold.

Her senses are immediately assaulted by noise, light, and a smell which seems to be an especially concentrated version of the Tortuga "bouquet," only with extra rum. She searches the crowd for her quarries, but cannot pick them out in the press of bodies; the recesses of the tavern are wreathed in smoke, and most of the patrons are taller than her.

Well, as she's here, she decides, she may as well ask about a room--more specifically, a room with a bath. Pulling her cap lower on her forehead to shadow her face, she pushes her way over to the bar, where a grizzled man she assumes to be the proprietor wipes down tankards perfunctorily before filling them with ale and handing them off to his customers.

It takes a little while for him to notice her there, until she pulls out a gold coin from her bag and casually flashes it his way.

"Yes? What can I do for ye, young master?"

Elizabeth glances surreptitiously from side to side, and suddenly sees Will, huddled in a corner and apparently deeply engrossed in serious consultation with Jack Sparrow. She hesitates for a second, watching them; Will leans forward while Jack gesticulates extravagantly--outlining some ill-conceived and slightly insane scheme or other, she has no doubt.

"Well, son? What is it ye be wanting, then?"

She turns back to him quickly, somewhat flustered, putting her back to the pair in case one of them should happen to look around.

"I was hoping to procure lodging for the night, sir." She places the coin down on the bar, fingers resting on it lightly.

He eyes it, bends toward her with a conspiratorial air. "Would ye be looking for any amenities, me friend? A woman or two to go wi' the room, perhaps? Won't cost ye more than another one of those, y'know..."

"No, no thank you," she says hastily. "Just the room. And a washbasin of hot water, if you please."

He looks highly disappointed, but gestures to one of the bar wenches as she passes by. "Rhiannon! This young gentleman would like to be shown upstairs to a room."

"Aye, Donnie." The girl glides up to Elizabeth and takes her arm, smiling ingratiatingly. "Anything else I can do for you, sir?"

"Just the room will be fine."

"Well, if you're sure about that..."

"Quite sure," Elizabeth says firmly. She slides the coin across to Donnie, and allows the girl to lead her toward the stairs.

* * *

"...So now she's angry at me," finishes Will, and looks to Jack for his response.

But Jack no longer seems to be paying attention.

"Jack..."

"What--? Oh, Elizabeth? You're afraid the lady intends to commit some immoderate action...like running off to sea disguised as a lad, for example."

Will stares at him blankly. "I didn't say that." He pauses, thinking about it. "You really suppose she'd do something so drastic?"

"Miss Swann...apologies...Mrs. Turner...she was never the sort to sit by when events failed to go her way, you know." Jack still sounds slightly abstracted.

"That's not very reassuring."

Jack shrugs. "Then again, the lass loved you enough to forsake a life of luxury and privilege as Mrs. Norrington, so who can say." He leans toward Will, dropping his voice. "Tell me something, Will...have you made any enemies in Tortuga lately?"

"Enemies? Here? Jack, I haven't dropped anchor at this island in years."

"Well, I noticed a gentleman over by the bar who appears distinctly interested to see us here...don't look," he hisses, as Will starts to turn. He sits back in his chair, to any casual eye relaxed and somewhat intoxicated, but Will observes how his right hand rests only a few inches from the hilt of his sword. "Wait for the opportune moment, my friend. Aye, there he goes," he says softly. "In the poncy blue doublet, with the mustaches. Recognize him?"

Will watches the man as he passes them on his way out the door. "No, he doesn't look familiar at all. Are you sure it was me he was interested in? You're much more well-known in these parts than I."

"Never seen him before in me life. Is he gone?"

"Aye."

"Good." Jack leans forward again, arching an inquiring eyebrow. "So 'fess up, m'boy. Precisely what sort of mess have you foolishly embroiled yourself in?"

Will shifts a trifle uneasily. "How do you know whether I'm embroiled in anything?"

"Consider it a lucky guess, if you wish. C'mon now...you can confide in ol' Jack. I promise I shan't inform against you. What is it...rum smuggling? Slave trade? Illegal coconuts?"

"None of the above," Will says.

"Don't be coy, lad. It's highly unbecoming."

Will sighs, resigned. "Privateering. Under the auspices of the Crown of England."

"Privateering," Jack repeats softly. "You are Bootstrap's son, after all...Does Elizabeth know?"

"No! Of course not. She has no idea."

"No, of course she wouldn't," Jack says, as if to himself. "And what rival of the Crown has discovered your identity and sent out spies to ascertain your whereabouts?"

"If the man was a spy...I'm not entirely sure," Will admits.

He has barely finished speaking when the door of the tavern crashes open. Jack, who is facing away from the entrance, glances quickly behind him, then back to Will with raised eyebrows.

"I'm not sure either...but I'll put my money on the Spanish Navy!"

* * *

Elizabeth has succeeded in convincing Rhiannon that she is not in need of any "additional services" by finally promising her another coin in return for as many basins full of water as she, Elizabeth, deems necessary. Rhiannon gives her an odd look, but the water arrives steaming within a few minutes. Elizabeth thanks her with a smile and presses the gold coin into her hand, knowing that it is probably worth more than Rhiannon's total earnings for a typical night. The girl's incredulous expression proves her right; Elizabeth catches her arm as she goes to leave.

"One more favor, and there'll be another of those in it for you, Rhiannon. Don't go telling any of the other girls about the price I pay for water, or I'll never get a moment of peace...understand?"

"Aye, sir. Not a whisper, sir. You have me word."

"Thank you, Rhiannon. I knew I could depend on you."

As soon as the wench is gone, Elizabeth sinks gratefully onto the rickety stool in front of the washstand. Twenty minutes later, having scrubbed her face thoroughly and cleaned the caked mud from her feet, she feels infinitely better and suddenly very hungry.

She is halfway down the back stairs on her way to the kitchen when she hears the unmistakable sound of a sword battle, punctuated by shouting and scuffling, from the common room.

She's fairly certain she recognizes Will's voice in the clamor. Abandoning all caution, she plunges the rest of the way down the steps, through the kitchen door, past the astonished cook, and through the door to the tavern, where she stops short.

Will has his back to her; advancing on him is what appears to be an entire regiment of blue-and-white uniformed soldiers. Jack stands beside Will, sword ready; he is speaking rapidly in Spanish. Elizabeth can't understand a syllable, but it sounds very much like a classic Sparrow spiel. The officer in command, unimpressed, answers him with a few terse words.

Now where has she witnessed a scene like this before, she wonders?

Oh, yes. Jack Sparrow's famous near-hanging.

_Goddamnit, Jack. One of these days you're going to get yourself, and my husband, well and truly killed..._

As she watches, the swords clash again, and the two men are driven back toward her.

... _if it doesn't happen now, here, tonight._

"Go, Will Turner!" Jack shouts above the din. "I'll hold them...get back to your ship, fool! Go!"

Will hesitates for a fraction of a second. Then he turns and runs straight towards her. She is too startled to move. They stare at each other for one long moment before he pushes her aside and races out the back door of the building.

A crash echoes from the common room as Jack overturns a table to block the soldier's advance, buying himself a precious few seconds. Elizabeth hears the Spanish captain shouting commands to his men, followed by retreating footsteps. The stunned silence in the tavern is replaced by a buzz of excited voices. She takes an uncertain step towards the door, her mind still struggling to process the events of the last few minutes, and comes face to face with Jack Sparrow.

He sways, regarding her, one hand pressed to his side, a faint, ironic smile tugging at his lips.

"Hullo, Elizabeth," he mumbles. And promptly collapses at her feet.

* * *


	9. Those Who Fall Behind

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Author's Note** : For those who are history-oriented or even history-curious, the Spanish did indeed launch several attacks on Tortuga during the 1600's to try and gain control of the port, and stop the privateers who used the island as a base for their raids on Spanish settlements in Hispaniola and Cuba. (Unfortunately for them, it never discouraged the buccaneers for long.) Oh...and the Cross of Burgundy, a red cross on a white background, was the Spanish Colonial flag from the 1500's to the 1700's.

**VIII.  
Those Who Fall Behind**

_"Before you step on board, sir,  
Your name I'd like to know."  
She smiled all in her countenance,  
"They call me Jackaroe."  
Oh, they call me Jackaroe._

_"Your waist is light and slender,  
Your fingers are neat and small  
Your cheeks too red and rosy  
To face the cannonball."  
Oh, to face the cannon-ball._

_"I know my waist is slender,  
My fingers neat and small  
But it would not make me tremble  
To see ten thousand fall."  
Oh, to see ten thousand fall._

\--"Jackaroe"

* * *

Will falters at the edge of the town, staring out to sea with a leaden heart. The moon has risen, and by its light he can see the pale uniforms of the men swarming the deck of the _Lady Swann_. He starts as the crack of a pistol echoes from across the water, followed by another, and another. Out-manned and probably out-gunned, his crew is nonetheless fighting for the ship.

As he stands there, berating himself for putting these good men in the way of such danger, a small cloaked figure grabs his arm and pulls him into the shadows. He shouts, shaking off his assailant and breaking into a run again, but the person leaps into his path, parrying a wild blow from his sword with an oath.

"Not that way, Will Turner!"

The voice sounds familiar; Will turns his next lunge into a feint, drawing back the blade just in time. "Who--?"

The hood is thrown back, revealing Anamaria's high cheekbones and fierce eyes. "Where's Jack?" she demands urgently.

He can hear the shouts and footsteps of his pursuers growing louder now. "He fell behind."

"Not again..." She follows his gaze, conflicting emotions flickering across her face in the half-light. "There's no time--Come. We must get to the _Pearl_."

"But my ship--"

"They've taken 'er already. Hurry!"

She yanks him with her into the trees; he has no choice but to follow her, crouching to avoid low-hanging branches and hoping he won't step on a snake--or anything else poisonous--in the dark.

"Try and be quiet, you great oaf," she hisses at him, after he trips over a long creeper and nearly goes sprawling.

"I'm trying!"

She looks disgusted. "I've known blind men to walk more stealthy drunk." Her arm darts out to block his path. "Wait--" Padding forward, she sweeps aside a curtain of leaves; beyond them lies the bay once more, shimmering silver in the moonlight.

"I knew it," she says. "See 'em, by the eastern spit?"

Will peers over her shoulder. Sure enough, he can make out the white glimmer of tall sails: a ship, on fast approach to the harbor.

"Now I'm just guessin', Will Turner, but I reckon they be no friends of yours on that vessel."

The wind picks up, and Will's heart sinks as he watches the red-on-white Cross of Burgundy unfurl from the topmast of the advancing warship. "It's a good guess," he admits.

"We'll have to swim for it," she says suddenly. " _Pearl'_ s not too far for that. Best we haul anchor and take to sea...I warned the boys to head back when I saw what was goin' on. They'll be raisin' sail right now, I daresay."

Will hesitates.

"Forget your blasted ship! I swear you're as bad as Jack Sparrow, moonin' after a thing of wood and canvas like she were a woman! I got no obligation to be helpin' you, Turner, and I'll be damned if I get meself stranded for it on account of you standin' there wastin' my precious time, you bloody fool--!"

* * *

"Jack!"

He lies crumpled sideways on the dirty stone of the kitchen floor, one hand thrown out toward her, the fingers half-uncurled. His kohl-smeared eyes are closed. Elizabeth sinks to her knees beside his unconscious body, a thousand and one fractured thoughts racing through her mind.

_Will..._

_Will's gone._

_What just happened?_

She shakes off her confusion, praying her husband has made it to the safety of his ship. She cannot understand why the Spaniards have retreated so quickly, without bothering to capitalize on the nigh-undefeatable advantage of twenty soldiers against one. It's as if they consider the arrest of Captain Jack Sparrow--who has surely been a wanted man in sovereign waters for years now--to be somehow inconsequential to their purpose.

Inconsequential compared to their urgent, not-even-close-to-friendly business with Will Turner, at least.

Sliding her left arm under the pirate's torso, she struggles to turn him over. The dead weight of him surprises her as she rolls him onto his back, and her fingers come away coated with a warm, slippery wetness.

Blood. Her hand is covered in Jack's blood.

"Oh, God...Jack..."

The cut runs diagonally down his left side, and the dark stain on his white shirt spreads steadily, shreds of sliced fabric sticking in the wound where he must have been pressing his own hand to staunch the flow. She cannot tell at first glance how deep it goes.

But if he's still bleeding, that means he's still alive.

She slips her other arm beneath his shoulders, the crook of her elbow supporting his lolling head, and gives him a little shake. "Damn you, Jack." She can't move him by herself, and no one seems inclined to help her. "For God's sake, wake up!"

He doesn't respond, although she sees or imagines she sees his brows draw slightly together in the shadow of a sulky frown.

Frustrated and--truth be told--feeling more than a little panicky, she leans down, her mouth a few centimeters from his ear. "You black-hearted, unwashed, obstinate bastard, you need to wake your wretched self up immediately and tell me exactly what is going on here."

His eyelids flutter the barest fraction before the long lashes sink back down resolutely.

"I have absolutely no qualms about slapping you awake, Jack Sparrow, so help me--"

She raises her hand, and finds her wrist caught and held, viselike.

His eyes remain shut. "Easy, love. What was that you just called me?"

"Black-hearted, obstinate bastard?" she says sweetly, attempting to claim back her hand. His grip tightens, effectively thwarting her efforts.

"Language, my dear! And it was after that part."

 _Oh, Lord._ "This is no time to stand on ceremony, _Captain_ ," she hisses at him. "The Spanish Navy could be back any minute to haul you off to the gallows, and you're rather badly wounded, in case that fact had somehow escaped your notice. I can't get you to safety all by myself, so you have to cooperate. Get up."

His eyes open halfway, and he regards her petulantly. His lashes really are ridiculously long. "Do I have to?"

"You don't _have_ to," she snaps. "You can lie here and slowly bleed to death on the floor, if you wish. It's your choice. But if you want me to help you, you must do what I tell you. Try and stand up, please."

He sighs, as if much put-upon, but he leans heavily on her shoulder as they rise, and the sigh turns to a swift indrawn breath that betrays him; he must be hurting much more than he's attempting to let on. She feels a stab of contrition for her sharp words.

"Can you walk?" she asks him more gently.

"Aye. Pray don't look so alarmed, Mrs. Turner, it's naught but a scratch, I assure you." He tries to grin at her. "I've suffered far worse blows in me time, y'know. Ow," he adds, wincing,as she pulls him unceremoniously across the kitchen to the stairwell. "Not that I don't appreciate your kind concern... Did Will escape?"

"I wish I knew," she says, grim. "Jack, what have you two been up to that the Spanish want Will's head, and don't give a damn about yours?"

"I really think you'd best ask him that one," grunts Jack. Their navigation of the narrow stairs is proving tricky and laborious.

"Don't try and say you're not involved in this."

"'M not. Your William got himself into this one all on his very own, with no assistance, sponsorship, or other encouragement from me...obviously, seeing as his little project was so easily discovered." He stumbles a little on an uneven step; she bears him up, keeping them both from falling. "Do tell me we are very nearly quit of these stairs, love..."

"Very nearly," she assures him.

In fact, they have just reached the landing when they hear the unmistakable thunder of cannon fire. They both stand still; Jack is breathing over-hard after the climb.

"It's the Armada," he mutters. "They're bloody quick, those devils."

"Will," she whispers. Another blast shakes the walls.

"Aye. Not to worry," he adds, seeing her face. "From the looks of things, he's been playing at this game for quite some time now. He'll get out...if he doesn't do anything stupid." He shrugs. "And if he does...which possibility, now that I think on it, is highly likely...there's not much you can do about it."

Elizabeth chooses to ignore this last bit. "Come on," she urges him, and they set off again, hastening down the corridor toward her room. At the door, they are forced to pause once more while Elizabeth rifles through her pockets for her key, one-handed, Jack's arm heavy on her shoulders, though he's leaning much of his weight against the doorjamb. "I don't understand why Will wouldn't tell me," she mutters, finding the key at last and fumbling with the lock.

Jack gives her a knowing look. "For many of the same reasons that he has no idea of your presence here, I expect."

"You didn't seem at all surprised to see me," she says suspiciously.

A dry chuckle. "I recognized you, love, the moment you sidled through that door."

She stares at him, dismayed.

"I've always been rather good with faces, m'dear. But you looked remarkably furtive, and dear Will remarkably unaware, so I assumed you wouldn't have taken too kindly to being pointed out, and kept my observations to meself. Besides, the situation struck me as vastly entertaining, and it would have been, had it not been for the interference of half the Spanish Main." He cocks his head, listening. "Ah...they've stopped."

"What does that mean?" They're in the room now; Elizabeth shuts the door behind them.

"Well, it could mean the _Lady Swann_ is well away and safe."

She lets out a breath, relieved, not only because of the silence of the cannons but because he hasn't yet demanded to know why she's here in the first place.

She can't think what she would tell him; she hardly knows the answer herself.

"Or, it might just mean they've got what they came for..." He grimaces, and sways dangerously on his feet.

She curses, half-leading, half-carrying him to the bed, trying not to think about that second possibility. "Lie down, Captain Sparrow. I know you think you're invincible, but you've lost quite a lot of blood."

His smile goes crooked with pain as he eases onto the mattress. "Aye, and a good portion of it appears to have got all over you, love. My apologies, by the way. Especially if, as I suspect is the case, your ship has sailed without you."

She looks at him blankly; then realization dawns. _Of course. If Will has gotten away, the **Lady Swann** is gone._

_What now, indeed, Mrs. Turner?_

The timid knock on the door startles her, but she turns toward it thankfully, saved from wrestling with this new dilemma for the time being.

"Who is it?" she says, pitching her voice boy-low.

"Only Rhiannon, sir. Were you wantin' any more water tonight?"

She opens the door a crack. "Actually, Rhiannon, I'll be needing a bit more than that."

When she's sent the girl on a mission to acquire cloth, an extra blanket, and a large flask of rum, as well as another basin of water, she turns back to Jack.

"And what of your ship, Jack? Has the _Black Pearl_ fled Tortuga as well, do you think?"

His eyes have begun to look a bit glazed, but his reply is clear enough. "Ana's no fool. They'd have hauled anchor soon as those Spanish galleons sailed into sight."

"Will they come back for you?" she asks softly.

"Don't know, lass. They mostly do, these days. Can't come back til the coast is clear, though..."

He stirs restlessly; she places a firm hand on his shoulder. "Hold still. You'll open that wound more if you thrash about like that."

"I am not thrashing," he says with dignity. Her touch seems to calm him somewhat, though he makes an uncertain, protesting noise in his throat.

"What?"

He glances up at her, the strange, fleeting hesitation in his dark eyes replaced by a familiar cocky glint. "Just thinkin' I should get meself cut up more often, love, if it'll get me the likes of you as nursemaid."

She rolls her eyes, resigned.

_He can't be too badly hurt, then..._

And she's startled by the degree of comfort she obtains from that thought.


	10. Wounds

**IX.  
Wounds**

_Into the surgeon's cabin  
They did convey him straight,  
Where, first of all the wounded men,  
The pretty surgeon's mate  
Most tenderly did dress his wound,  
Which bitterly did smart;  
Then said he  
'Oh! one like thee  
Once was mistress of my heart!'_

\--"The Valiant Lady"

* * *

Will stands dripping at the port gunwale of the _Pearl_ , only half-hearing the anchor strike the hawse as the crew pulls it home. From his vantage point he can see clearly to the deck of the _Lady Swann_ , where a line of captured men faces a small group of Spanish officers. The line appears shorter than it should. Will prays that this means some of his crew has escaped or were still ashore when the assault began, and not merely that too many did not survive.

_Damn you, Capitan Morena..._

His gaze fixes on the tallest officer; even from this distance, he's fairly sure he recognizes the man's haughty bearing as he stalks the boards of the defeated _Lady_.

_It has to be. No one else would go to all that trouble to find me._

His fists clench at his sides.

_Not quite enough trouble, my friend...not quite enough._

A cry from the quarterdeck snaps him out of his dark musings. "Tha's done it! We been spotted, Miss Ana!"

"We can outrun 'em," she shouts back from the helm, swinging the wheel hard to starboard. "Look to the sails, lads, here we go!"

Will climbs up to stand beside her on the poop deck. "What's your plan?"

She grunts. "Lose 'em at sea. That ship can't catch us. Too many guns weightin' 'em too low in the draft..." Her mouth twists ironically. "I've seen its like before."

As if to emphasize her words, the night is split asunder by the roar and whistle of the war galleon's guns. The other ship has swung athwart them and opened fire. But the shots fall short. Will realizes that Ana has taken the precise angle that would prevent the corsair from following them apace and shooting all the way; now, she cannot both pursue the _Pearl_ and fire upon her, except from her bowchasers, and the _Pearl_ is already out of their range. He looks at Ana with new appreciation.

The second volley of cannonfire fades to echoes behind them. "And once we get away?" he asks her.

"We lay low for a few days, and wait for the situation to cool off." She meets his gaze evenly. "And then we come back and see if we can't find the Cap'n."

Will glances over his shoulder at Tortuga Harbor, rapidly shrinking in the distance, then back at the tiny woman beside him. "Anamaria," he begins, spurred by a sudden resolve. "I know it's far out of your way, but...could you find it in your heart to do me a favor first, and sail me back to Port Royal?"

She scowls. "Like I've not done you enough favors t'night, Will Turner? Nay, 'tis too risky. I've taken me chances with the Royal Navy in the past, and that was for far better reason. I've no wish to do so again."

"And you took that risk to rescue Jack," Will says softly. "Ana, that's my crew back there now, and I can't just leave them at the mercy of Captain Morena. He's not famous for being a kind man, you know. I have to go back for them...just as you have to go back for Jack Sparrow."

Her face remains stony. "Your crew's fate ain't no business of mine."

"I can compensate you well for your time and trouble..."

"Aye, and you'd best tell me why I ever did aid you in the first place, too," she grouses. But her expression turns calculating, and he knows he's got her.

"Governor Swann will help us both," he says. And hopes fervently that he's telling the truth.

* * *

"Drink this," Elizabeth says, sitting on the edge of the bed and handing Jack the flask of rum that Rhiannon has brought her. "Don't finish it though. I'm going to need it."

He takes a long swig, then stiffens as she eases his coat off his shoulders. "Hold it right there, missy. It's scarcely fair play to take advantage of a man who's been rendered incapable of defending himself."

She smiles down at him sweetly. "Ah, but who ever told you I played fair? Now, do stop twitching. I want to have a look at that cut." The felt of the coat is soft with continuous wear, and stained with sweat and sea-salt. "You should really wash more, Jack," she says.

"I wash," he protests.

"What, once a year? Swimming in the ocean doesn't count. Have you or your clothes seen soap since you bought them?"

She makes him lift his left arm so she can strip the sleeve the rest of the way off his wrist, and catches him wincing at the movement before he turns his grimace into a frown of concentration. "I can't remember," he says. "Is that bad?"

"It's certainly not surprising," she says, amused.

But aside from all the blood, the thin white shirt beneath the coat seems remarkably clean in the fickle lamplight, and she can't help noticing that he doesn't stink much worse than Will used to when she'd slip in to visit him at the smithy: sweaty, but not rank, and distinctly, distractingly male. Except Will's scent always had a hint of the smoke and cinders of the forge, while Jack smells like the sea, and spiced rum.

He submits almost meekly to her ministrations, and she is uncomfortably aware of his eyes on her as she unbuttons his shirt; her hands stumble a little when they accidentally brush his skin, which is smoother than she expected and brown from hours in the sun. The sensation lingers on her fingertips for awhile as if his warmth has actually burned her.

_Careful, Mrs. Turner...careful._

_What in heaven's name is wrong with me, anyway?_

Squelching all such speculations before they can lead her into treacherous waters-- _here there be dragons_ \--she drops her gaze from his face, forces herself to focus on peeling the blood-soaked fabric away from his torso. It sticks to the congealing edges of the wound, and he grunts softly in pain.

"Sorry." She lets him take another swallow of rum. "The worst is yet to come, I'm afraid."

He smiles tightly. "'S not so bad." But his pupils have gone wide, drowning his eyes in black. She hesitates, dismayed; he sketches an impatient gesture with his good hand. "Let's get on with it, shall we? Do as you must, oh merciless one..."

"Hardly merciless. I did give you the rum." Resolutely, she dips a clean rag in the steaming water, wrings it out.

"Aye, that's true," he says, and then jerks sideways at the touch of the hot cloth. "Bloody hell, woman! Are you trying to kill me?"

"Hold still, for God's sake! I'm trying to be as gentle as I can." With most of the excess blood wiped away, she can see that the gash doesn't run too deep, though long: from the left of his navel to the second rib. Nonetheless, it has begun to look rather angry. "Give me that bottle," she says sharply.

He looks at it, then back at her, dramatic suspicion writ large. Sighing, she grabs him by the wrist and peels his fingers off the flask; he relinquishes it with the utmost reluctance, finally falling back onto the pillow with an expression that can only be described as a pout.

"You're not going to enjoy this," she informs him, and before he can respond, she pours half the remaining liquid over the cut.

The muscles of his abdomen contract spasmodically; he bites off a cry, his upper body rising halfway off the mattress before he regains control and subsides, eyes closed, his breaths coming shallow and uneven.

"Why--" he grates at last, eyes still shut, "why, love, why in the name of all that is good and holy, _why_ did you have to do that?"

She sits back, taking a swig of rum herself now that he's not looking; it lends her words a flippant steadiness she doesn't feel. "Calm down, Jack. Did you really want to get blood poisoning?"

He opens one eye and regards her balefully. "What does that have to do with anything? You squandered half a bottle of good rum. Couldn't you have come up with a decent method of torture? Dribbled more hot water on me, perhaps?"

"The rum's not that good. You're welcome to the rest of it." Rising from the bed, she hands the flask back to him and goes to the basin to clean her hands. "Alcohol poured over a wound is the best way to keep the poison out. My native nanny taught me that when I was a young girl." She laughs a little, remembering that day. "I was never the most cautious of children, and I'd caught my bare foot on a nail in the stables. Sarah was so angry...not with me, but with the servant who'd left the nail there." Then she stops short; it has suddenly occurred to her that she is sharing memories of her childhood with Jack Sparrow. The rum must be more potent than she'd thought...She steals a quick glance at him, but he appears to have fallen asleep, and she experiences a moment of profound relief; until he speaks.

"Well, go on, love...what's the end of the story?" His voice is lazy, and more than a little slurred.

"Nothing," she says hastily. "I mean, that's all of it." She picks up the rest of the dry rags. "I still need to wrap that up, Jack."

"Ah." He stirs. "Should've known you weren't yet finished tormenting me, I suppose."

"Not quite yet." Tearing the rags into strips, she packs them into the length of the wound, which is still oozing blood, although not nearly as much as it was. He stares straight ahead, face set. "Hold these in place and sit up, please."

He obeys, pushing himself upright, and this time he cannot hide his wince. She gathers up his shirt and jacket from behind him and sits, unfolding the long roll of cloth she intends to use as a bandage. His naked back is narrow but well-muscled, the tangled hair falling forward and off the nape of his neck--which, she observes ruefully, does indeed want washing, rather badly. When she replaces his hand with her own in order to bind his ribs, the shoulders bent to her tense nervously, and his head drops forward a fraction.

She shakes her head, glad he cannot see the tiny smile that tugs at her mouth despite herself and the gravity of their circumstances. She's never known a grown man who fidgets even nearly as much as this one does. He's as touchy as a thoroughbred stallion, one of the half-wild animals that the Spanish traders used to ship into Port Royal and sell to unsuspecting young Navy officers.

_Not to mention just as dangerous..._

* * *

Bending close to him, Elizabeth wraps the cloth tightly around Jack's torso, her breath warm against his exposed skin. It's been far too long since he's shared a room with a woman, he thinks distractedly, trying to concentrate on his own rather uneven breathing; he wishes she'd be a little less efficient as well as--ow--a bit less energetic about the task at hand.

She finishes and moves away from him all too soon...or perhaps not soon enough, he really can't decide. He lies watching her from behind half-closed lids as she bends to pick up his discarded shirt and jacket; she doesn't look at him, folding the garments neatly and methodically, and he smiles to himself, unable to imagine why anyone would believe for a second that she was a lad. Even in the loose-fitting breeches, cap, and ragged waistcoat, her shape seems unmistakably feminine to him, unmistakably Elizabeth.

He shifts, restive, against the bandage on his ribs, hoping she'll notice his discomfort and come over to loosen it, but she has busied herself at the washbasin again, scrubbing away at her fingernails. Apparently the girl is completely obsessed with cleanliness. He glances down at his own hands, the nails soiled and black with his own blood in addition to the usual soot and grime they gather over weeks of work on the _Pearl_. Maybe he can convince her to help him clean up, too. She'd probably be overjoyed, considering the dedication and passion with which she is now laving her face and forearms.

Now when it's put that way, bathing might not be such a bad thing. He opens his mouth to suggest the idea to her. But the words fade unspoken from his lips.

She sits with her back to him; she has shrugged her coat to the floor in a stained heap, and he can easily make out the ridge of her ramrod-straight spine under the near-transparent fabric of her blouse. He frowns; odd, that. He doesn't remember her being quite so thin. He wonders absently, as he has frequently throughout the course of the evening, what has brought her here, why she should appear in such an unlikely place at such an unlikely juncture, just in time, in fact, to (possibly) save his life; but something about that rigid spine indicates that she won't take kindly to any more personal questions. And while he would normally ignore that warning just for the entertainment of seeing her angry, indignant, or thrown off-balance, his mind has perhaps been dulled by blood loss and the fair quantity of rum he's consumed, for he finds with a mild sense of surprise that he is content to merely observe her.

In a single swift movement, she reaches up and pulls off her cap, her hair spilling down over her shoulders in a unruly mass of dark-honey curls. Comb in hand, she stares almost dreamily at her blurred reflection in the cracked glass above the washbasin.

Then her steadfast poise evaporates, and she hurls the comb to the floor with alarming force. She propels herself from the rickety stool so violently that it wobbles on two legs, barely escaping being thrown to the ground as well. Pacing to the tiny window, she gazes out into the darkness; after a moment, her shoulders slump, and she leans her forehead against the filthy glass.

_Meditating on the actions and inactions of dear William, no doubt._

She proves him right; the words are spoken as if only to herself.

"He didn't recognize me..."

She turns and looks at him, probably expecting an answer. But this time Captain Jack Sparrow is pretending diligently to be fast asleep.


	11. Awakenings

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Note:** The Governor's sentiments about slavery and people of color are not, of course, my own and are intended to reflect the attitudes and beliefs of the period.

**X.  
Awakenings**

_A maid that is young,  
_ _a maid that is fair,  
_ _a maid that is kind and pleasant, oh  
_ _so early in the morning  
_ _the sailor loves the maiden, oh!  
_ _so early in the morning_

\--"The Sailor's Loves"

* * *

The Honorable Weatherby Swann, Governor of British Jamaica, hums cheerfully to himself as he mounts the steps to his daughter's house, prayer book tucked under his arm. Since Will is gone so often, father and daughter attend prayer meetings together in town every Sunday; Elizabeth often rides back with him afterwards to spend the day at the big white house on the hill, where she acts as the lady of the house, meeting with visiting dignitaries and serving tea to up-and-coming Navy officers. As always, he looks forward to this time with his daughter; all the more so this morn, for the recent storm has kept him housebound and restless these past two days and nights.

Today, however, the clouds have mostly broken up, aside from a few scudding wisps over the western ocean. It's a particularly lovely Sunday morning, in fact, and a pleasure to be out and about in it; the only hints of the recent weather--save the broken palm fronds, torn free by the high winds, that litter the roads--are the number of sailors hard at work in the harbor, repairing damaged ships and shattered docks. Fortunately, the Turner household appears to have escaped the storm relatively unscathed, though one of the mulatto houseboys is atop the roof replacing shingles lost to the gale.

"Mornin', Massa Swann!"

"Good morning...er..." The Governor struggles briefly to remember the boy's name, but fails. He has no idea how Elizabeth manages to keep them all straight; she pays almost too much mind to her staff, able to relate, at a moment's notice, not only their Christian and native names, but their personal histories, the ages and names of their children, and their relationship to servants in other houses. He's attempted to instill in her time and time again the principle that treating those people like equals will encourage all sorts of trouble in her household, warning her that given a meter such savages will take ten; they will cease to respect her authority and become disobedient, exploiting her excessive lenience. Every time he brings up the subject, however, she just laughs at him and pats his hand indulgently-- "Oh, Father. You're so old-fashioned. Have I had any problems with the servants yet? Do you see any tasks being neglected?" And then he is forced to admit that no, everything seems to be in perfect order, for a wonder.

He supposes that it is his fault, after all, for allowing that native woman the raising of her.

The maid who answers his brisk knock seems inexplicably frightened to see him.

"Governor Swann, sir..."

He steps into the foyer. No doubt Elizabeth has slept late, as is her habit; she will still be dressing in her chambers. "Run upstairs like a good girl, please, and tell your mistress the carriage is waiting."

"Sir..." She wrings her hands, dropping several nervous curtsies.

"What is the matter, child?" A distressing thought occurs to him. "Is Elizabeth sick again? Why have I not been told?"

"No, it's not that, sir...it's...well..."

"What?" he demands, exasperated. "Speak up, girl, and stop that stammering. Where is my daughter?"

"I'm afraid Mistress Turner is not at home, Your Grace." Jamison, the tall native butler, appears noiselessly behind the servant woman. Governor Swann starts and stares at him. He can never get used to how silently the man moves; it's unnatural, as is the fact that he speaks with the cultured accent of a British gentleman.

"What do you mean, not at home? Where has she gone? It's Sunday, for God's sake!" He finds he is shouting, and controls himself with an effort. "Tell me what in heaven's name this is all about, Jamison."

The butler places a comforting hand on the shoulder of the servant girl, who is now weeping quietly into her apron. "Did you not know, my lord? Mistress Turner elected to sail with her husband on board the _Lady Swann_. She departed several days ago."

"I--I don't believe it," he sputters. "She did what--? Why? No, of course I didn't know! I should have been told--too dangerous--what put such an idea in her head?"

"Difficult to say, my lord." Jamison pulls an envelope from his waistcoat pocket. "She did leave you this letter, sir. She did not wish you to worry."

"Did not wish me to worry!" The Governor turns the envelope over, examining it distractedly. "She has no idea what she's done...the risk she's taken..."

"I am very sorry, sir."

"Not your fault, Jamison. Not your fault at all." He shakes his head mournfully and sinks into one of the fancy embroidered chairs. "Oh, Elizabeth...I had such hopes that she'd grown out of this sort of nonsense...I rather thought marriage would do the trick...and now this...!"

He opens the envelope and removes the single sheet with a trembling hand, fumbling in his pocket for his spectacles. At the sight of Elizabeth's graceful, sloping script, his chest contracts painfully. Her handwriting is so very like her mother's...

How could she do this to him? She knows his heart has weakened over the years. A shock like this could kill him. And Will Turner...he knows better, as well. He's been warned about this kind of thing. Especially now, with the additional responsibilities the lad has taken on for the Crown. That ship is no place for a woman, let alone Weatherby's only daughter.

Her message is short and characteristically unequivocal; he reads it with a growing sense of dread.

_Dearest Papa,_

_I hope this letter finds you well, and I am sorry for any grief it may cause you, for that is not its intent. I pray that you will try to understand my motives in writing it._

_As I am sure Jamison has now informed you, I have decided it is time for me to do a little traveling myself. To these ends, I have secured a place on my namesake vessel; I expect to be away for some time. I beg of you, do not blame Will for allowing me to do this, as he does not know of my plan, and, if all goes as arranged, will not discover said plan until it is far too late to prevent its fulfillment._

_Please try to understand why I must do this, dear Father, though I fear you may find it difficult. You see, I cannot bear to spend the rest of my days in one place only, as it seems both you and my beloved husband wish me to do. I have long been fully recovered from the fever that interrupted my last journey, and since then I have felt more and more every day as if I were a prisoner in my own home and in my own life. I crave freedom, Father, and it pains me that in seeking it I must deceive both of the men I love most in all the world._

_I ask you not to be over-harsh with Mr. Wallace, who has agreed to look after the household, as well as the accounts, while I am gone. His loyalty to you should not be questioned; he is a very nice young gentleman, and should not be punished for falling prey to my shameless manipulations._

_I promise I shall return with the _Lady Swann_ when she sails from Honduras, which should be well before Christmas. Please forgive me, Father, and please do not worry over me. I do know how to look after myself, and I wish with all my heart that you would trust me to do so._

_All my love,_

_Elizabeth._

He folds and refolds the single sheet of paper, mind racing. The 'Lady Swann' must be intercepted, before the ship reaches her destination. Surely if Elizabeth understands the danger she's unwittingly placed herself in, she'll see reason and come quietly back to Port Royal...

Stuffing the letter in his pocket, he hastily thanks the servants and races out the door; he will have to skip the meeting this morning. Instead, he orders the coachman to take him down to the fort.

Commodore Norrington will help him to straighten this out.

The Commodore's been married for a year, but Weatherby Swann isn't blind. He sees the way Norrington still looks at his daughter. Of course the man is far too well-bred to ever mention his unrequited affection for Elizabeth, but mention her name and he'll be on his feet, ready to do whatever it takes to save her.

Even if, in this case, they must save her from herself.

* * *

Jack Sparrow becomes gradually aware of something tickling his nose: something fine and feathery, that smells faintly of soap and rosewater. Still half-asleep, he bats at it--ineffectually, for there seems to be quite a lot of the stuff.

Then his outflung hand comes in contact with something warm and soft.

He jerks back as if stung; opens his eyes cautiously. And freezes.

"Well, well," he murmurs. "That's interesting."

Elizabeth Swann-- _Turner_ , he reminds himself absently--lies curled up kittenlike on the bed next to him, her back to him, hair spread around her in waves of tarnished gold that catch and magnify the rays of sunlight filtering through the little window, until she could be imagined almost to glow with some clear inner radiance of her own.

"That's very interesting..."

He reaches out tentative fingers toward the luminous strands, then pulls away reflexively as she stirs in her sleep and mumbles something incomprehensible.

"Sorry, love...didn't quite catch that."

At his words, she rolls over without waking, trapping his arm beneath her body, head nestling into the hollow of his shoulder; a slender hand settles itself rather possessively on his bare chest. Bemused, he draws his head back gingerly, out of the way of the encroaching tumble of hair, and regards her sleeping form.

She makes a soft, contented noise, pressing closer to his side. He watches, increasingly disconcerted, as one long leg slides over his, her knee coming to rest between his thighs.

_Bloody hell._

She is still dressed in the simple cotton shirt and breeches of her disguise, and though her breasts remain tightly bound in a regrettable attempt to conceal her sex, he can feel every contour of her body against his; the heat of her floods through his veins like lightning, like an entire bottle of rum drunk far too fast.

_Careful, mate. This treasure's not yours for the taking..._

He swallows, desperately struggling to maintain some small vestige of control, unable to suppress the thought that it would be all too easy to reach across and slip his free hand beneath the shirt's untucked hem. His fingers flex atop the mattress as he imagines the silky warmth of her skin under them, imagines her pliant body responding to his touch..

The voice of self-preservation comes to his rescue.

_More like she rouses and shoves that knee of hers right up into your crotch._

He glances down and decides that the safest place for his hand is, in fact, just there--protectively situated between his privates and the very real danger that menaces them. With a sense of helplessness, he wonders if it would be wiser to disentwine himself from her and risk her misunderstanding his intentions as less than honorable, or to lie still and wait for her to wake on her own while his intentions...and other things...grow inevitably more dishonorable by the second. But he's not even nearly finished weighing his options when she resolves the issue for him.

* * *

Elizabeth opens her eyes, and finds herself staring directly into Jack's dark, unreadable gaze, his face only a few centimeters from her own.

Horrified, she jumps up so fast she nearly falls.

 _I knew it was a mistake to fall asleep there...I only meant to close my eyes for a moment..._.

He's rolled onto his back, looking her over lazily, an insolent smile playing over his disreputable features.

"Come, now, darling, what's your hurry?"

"Just what the hell were you doing, Jack?" Her voice is rendered indistinct by fury and embarrassment.

He stretches, elaborately unconcerned. "I did nothing unseemly, love. It was you who cozied up to me...very sweetly, I might add." One eyebrow lifts suggestively. "Indeed, you're quite a different woman altogether when you're asleep...immeasurably more agreeable, if you don't mind me saying so..."

"Oh, but I do mind!"

He reacts only just quickly enough to catch the empty flask she flings at him, though he winces a little; the instinctive movement probably required the use of his wounded side muscles, and she allows herself a fraction of vindictive pleasure at the thought.

"Your honor," he growls, "remains unimpugned, m'lady. I suffered the sleepy caresses of your eager little hands and didn't even cop meself a single feel...savvy? Which, I daresay, is far more than you should rightly expect from any unsuspecting gentleman, rubbing up against him as you did to me."

She glowers at him, inarticulate, cheeks shamefully ablaze. "You...bloody... _pirate_!"

"The only pirate that has ever failed to take advantage of such a tempting opportunity...and likely the only one that ever will, love." The incorrigible, infuriating grin returns. "Ah, Will Turner...if you only knew what I've done for you today, mate..."

This time, he's not prepared as Elizabeth's comb flies precipitously at his head.

"Ouch!"

She snatches up her stained jacket and stalks to the door, chin high.

"That was highly unnecessary, don't you think? ...Oi! Where are you going?"

She turns in the doorway and fixes him with her most deadly glare.

"I am going out," she announces haughtily. "And you, Captain Jack Sparrow, are going to stay right...where...you...are. On pain," she adds, "of death. 'Savvy?'"

"Aye, savvy," she hears him grumble, behind her; then, "Here! That's _my_ word, Lizzie-girl--"

Elizabeth lets the door slam shut, cutting off the rest of his protest, the action and sound (and consequent lack thereof) immensely satisfying. Until, about two steps into the hall, she realizes she's forgotten something. She lifts her hands to the hair cascading messily around her shoulders, and glares daggers at the bleary-eyed and unshaven fellow inn-mate who's leering at her from the doorway of an adjacent room.

"Oh, _bloody_ hell!"


	12. Misplaced Equilibrium

* * *

**XI.  
Misplaced Equilibrium**

_With her pistols loaded she went aboard.  
And by her side hung a glittering sword,  
In her belt two daggers; well armed for war  
Was this female smuggler,  
Was this female smuggler, who never feared a scar._

\--"The Female Smuggler"

* * *

"Will Turner! Get yourself up here-- _now_!"

Will looks up from the rope he's securing, alarmed. Anamaria holds her spyglass in one hand; the other hand is planted on her hip, and she does not look in the slightest degree pleased. He drops the rope and hurries up the steps to the helm.

"What is it?"

For answer, she shoves the glass at him and jabs a finger at the southeast horizon. "Have a look for yourself, why don't you."

Scanning the line where sea meets sky, he catches sight of the white gleam of sails in the morning sunlight.

"Oh, blast." He lowers the spyglass and looks in blank surprise at Ana. "They're still following us."

"Aye, so it seems," she says, dry-voiced. "And you'd best hope they don't catch up to us, Will Turner. Because I'll tell you right now, if it be a matter of choice for me between protectin' your sorry arse and protectin' the _Pearl_ , I won't think twice afore I hand you over to 'em."

* * *

Elizabeth storms back into the room she shares _\--is forced to share--_ with Jack Sparrow, more vexed than ever that she must ruin the dramatic effect of her recent exit.

Jack eyes her from the bed, one eyebrow arching toward his headscarf. "Missed me already, did you?"

"Do you ever think of not speaking?" She scowls at him, wishing that looks _could_ kill.

Jack places a hand over his heart and contrives to look aggrieved. "No need to get yourself all in a twist, love."

Irritated beyond reason, she snaps, "I am _not_ in a 'twist', as you so vulgarly put it! And will you, _if_ you please, stop calling me 'love.'" And stops herself; he's teasing her on purpose, she realizes, whether out of pure deviltry or for some other reason indeterminate. Resolving to ignore him, she hunts through her belongings for her comb. But her search soon proves fruitless, and she sits back on her heels, breath puffing out in frustration.

"Looking for this, dearie?" Jack inquires. She stiffens at his mocking tone, glancing round at him with all the dignity she can muster; he retrieves the object in question from beside the pillow and waves it at her, smirking. "You tried to take me eye out with it a minute or two ago, remember? Which, if I may say so, seems a bit counterproductive, seeing as how last night you were bound and determined to bandage me up. And pour rum on me. Unless you're looking to create an opportunity for a repeat performance--?"

"What makes you think I'd bandage you up this time?" she retorts, and snatches the comb from his tar-stained hand. "You seem to be doing your best to cause me to regret the first." Turning her back on him as before, she begins tearing through the knots in her hair with a vengeance that is not, in fact, meant for the unruly tangles themselves but rather for the man lounging on the bed behind her.

"My mistake," he mutters. "I'd thought you might be moved to a bit of human kindness...must have forgotten who I was dealing with, eh?"

"I think perhaps you must have," she says sharply. As if she hasn't done him any favors in the last twenty-four hours. Once again, she reminds herself not to rise to her bait; but once again, the task to which she instead applies herself becomes yet another source of increasing exasperation.

_I should have plaited the damn stuff before...or just chopped it off..._

She folds a long lock up, considering. Will loved her waist-length curls; but now, they seem little more than a hindrance and a liability to her. As if she doesn't have enough annoyances to deal with already. But to cut it short would seem so...irreversible.

Would it be so easy, so simple, to leave behind everything she has been?

What would she be, then?

For the moment, unprepared for such a weighty choice, she creates two thick braids with expert speed and coils them around her head, securing them with several pins: a small kind of order regained in the chaos she has made of her world. It steadies her, calms her; still, she can feel Jack watching her, and she flushes hotly all over again at the fresh memory of how he was looking at her when she woke. She'll have to rent another room for tonight; he may not have touched her this morning, but she doesn't trust what she saw lurking in those dark eyes.

And she's not entirely sure she trusts herself with him, either.

She hears him move and grunt in pain; the sound rouses her from her brief reverie, and she turns to find him struggling to sit up against the restrictive bandage and the stiffness of what she hopes is a healing wound.

"A little assistance here, Miss Swann?"

_Mrs. Turner._

But for some reason she doesn't correct him; and although she contemplates letting him fend for himself, she sighs and instead goes to his side, placing a supporting arm behind his shoulders.

"Thanks very much..." He immediately swings his legs over the side of the bed and attempts to stand up, swaying alarmingly and far more than usual. Elizabeth hurriedly props him up.

"Ah...perhaps not quite as good an idea as I had supposed," he murmurs, before his knees buckle; his body crumples sideways abruptly, a dead weight in her arms. She barely prevents him from hitting his head hard on the floor as he falls.

_Stupid. The man's lost far too much blood._

She kneels beside him, thinking that they've been here already, done this before, last night, when she begged him to wake up, when he seemed the only known quantity in a reality that had gone so rapidly askew.

_Was that only last night?_ Everything seems so very different now. _No going back._

Today, much to her unwilling relief, he comes round far more quickly, and squints up at her in confusion. "What--?"

She can't help but chuckle at his extreme bewilderment. "You just had another little fainting spell, that's all."

"Captain Jack Sparrow doesn't 'faint', love," he informs her. "I must have...misplaced my equilibrium. Momentarily, that is. Help me up."

She places a restraining hand on his arm. "Jack, you need to eat something. Build your blood back up. You can't go wandering around Tortuga until you do."

He looks at the hand, then back at her; she removes it with alacrity. "I'll go downstairs and get you some food," she says, resigned.

"How about some rum?"

"If you promise to lie down again and behave yourself this time, maybe."

He blinks at her. "I am lying down."

"Jack Sparrow, you are, without a doubt, the most infuriating man I have ever had the misfortune of knowing." She stands up, shoves her cap down over her forehead. "Stay there if you like, then. It doesn't make a difference to me."

He considers this, then reaches an arm up towards her in supplication. "Surely you wouldn't leave me here on this cold, hard floor, love."

"Oh! You're impossible." Dragging him back to his feet, she pushes him unceremoniously onto the bed. "And bloody _heavy_ ," she pants, when he has settled back on the lumpy pillow. "Now do me a favor, would you, and don't try anything else that foolish before I get back. I _will_ leave you where you fall next time, as you would most decidedly deserve."

"Yes, m'lady," he says, giving her a demure look through those absurdly long lashes; then he grins suddenly, disarmingly. "Must say, if I didn't know better, darling, I might start believing you do care whether I live or die, after all."

She rolls her eyes, but a small smile tugs at her mouth despite herself. "A good thing we both know better, then, isn't it?"

"A very good thing," he agrees, gravely; then, as she turns to go, adds, "Oh, and Elizabeth?"

Setting her jaw, she gathers her patience. "What is it, Jack?"

"'Twould be a great pity if you chopped off all that pretty hair of yours. It suits you."

She stares at him for a moment, for once unable to come up with a suitable rejoinder, before she moves away with a shake of her head.

"Don't forget the rum," he calls after her cheerfully, as the door shuts behind her.

* * *

She makes her way downstairs to the kitchen, pursued by the awful suspicion that Jack is only pretending to be too weak to stand in order to keep her waiting on him hand and foot.

But by the time she returns bearing a tray of steaming food--including a bottle of grog for Captain Sparrow--she has realized that she, too, has not eaten for far too long. She and Jack break their fast together, although she spends most of the meal keeping a sharp eye on him to ensure that he consumes at least close to as much meat stew as he does alcohol. The balance, she decides in the end, is still steeply tipped in favor of the rum. But at least he has eaten something. And why, then, does she care whether he's nourished or not?

_The sooner he's well, the sooner I can wash my hands of him._

She takes advantage of his alcohol-induced tranquility to change the dressing on his side; it has begun to bleed through, probably torn open in his ill-fated attempt to get up. He seems to have escaped infection, however. The wound looks clean enough, with only a little pink around the edges, and the skin does not exude the feverish heat with which she's all too familiar.

"Be careful," she orders him sternly, rising. "I don't want to have to do that any more than I have to, so please try not to rip it open again."

"You never told me where you were going," he objects.

"As if it's any business of yours! But if you must know, I would like to buy myself a blouse that doesn't stink of blood."

A small silence, then he says, in tones that, were he any other man, would have her believing his sincerity, "I am sorry about all this, love."

Because she wants to accept his apology and will not admit it, she huffs, "I've a name, you know. It's--" _Mrs. Turner._ "--Elizabeth," she finishes, and wonders why.

He opens his eyes wide, and raises a finger triumphantly. "When you learn to call me Captain, _love_ , I will address you however you please."

"Well, _Captain_ , I am going to take my leave of you now." She fixes him with a quelling glance. "Be good."

"Elizabeth, darling." Gold teeth flash. "I am _always_ good." A protest whose effect is entirely ruined by the wink that accompanies the words, by which she knows he rather means the opposite. If Jack Sparrow is good, he can be good only at sinning; and she will not let herself consider _how_ good he might be, at that.

* * *

Once she is quit of the "Faithful Bride" and her maddening patient, Elizabeth's steps lead her not to the shops but down to the bustling, redolent waterfront. Where she stands, at a loss, on the edge of the quay, her throat tightening with the onset of the dread she's been fighting since last night.

The _Lady Swann_ is gone indeed.

_And what did you expect?_

So there's naught to do but wait for the _Pearl_ , after all. Because even after looking straight into her eyes last night in the kitchen of the 'Bride', she knows Will Turner has no inkling that she is anywhere but safe in her happy little home, mending hems and gossiping with her 'peers.' And by now, wherever he has gone, he is undoubtedly very far away.

She turns her back on the ocean, and strides up the street to find the dressmaker's shop whose sign she saw on her way down to the shore; but when she reaches it, she stares irresolutely at its door for only a moment, before turning aside and crossing to the tailor instead. She smiles a little, then; in the past few days, she's gotten very used to walking unimpeded by yards of fabric or restrictive undergarments, and she enjoys it immensely. Her maids will certainly have a time of it trying to get her back into a corset for the next special occasion at Port Royal...when she finally returns.

_If_ she ever returns...

She lingers among the shops for more time than may be entirely necessary, as yet disinclined to confront the...problem...awaiting her back at the inn, and equal parts appalled and intrigued by the boisterous, colorful anarchy of this pirates' city and its diverse populace. She sees hardly a clean-shaven male face among the townspeople, let alone a clean one; even those few men who seem more well-off and less desperate dress in flashy colors and carry themselves with a rakish bravado and a swagger that reminds her of no one more than Jack Sparrow himself.

_Not a gentleman in the lot, only gentleman thieves...if there is such a thing._

She does note with interest the refreshing absence of the corset, and that hats, when worn, serve the practical purpose of sun protection rather than the aims of modesty or fashion. In fact, she's never seen so many bare female heads in her life. Numerous "ladies of the evening" wander through the streets freely, hair loose around their shoulders or haphazardly pinned back, talking and laughing loudly. Elizabeth soon finds herself unperturbed by the frequent solicitations that fly her way. She rejects the offers firmly but politely, with sympathy rather than disgust; these women do not depend on husband or family to support them, and she feels a strange, sneaking admiration for their self-sufficiency, their easy walk and bold manner, despite the weary emptiness she meets in their eyes. However, she does stare overlong at one tall, deep-voiced wench with an unmistakable Adam's apple, puzzling over what man would be fool enough to accept "her" favors.

The majority of the men...and several women...carry their weapons openly. These weapon-bearing women fascinate Elizabeth most. Like her, they dress in men's breeches and boots, but unlike her they seem unconcerned with concealing their femininity.

She has an opportunity to witness this outlandish attitude first-hand, soon enough; a fight starts up in the street when a particularly uncouth, very drunk man has the misfortune to roughly grab the arm of a petite red-headed lass with a cutlass at her belt. The woman disarms the low-life--who is easily twice her size--and leaves him writhing and groaning in the mud of the gutter in two lightning-fast moves.

The watching crowd cheers, Elizabeth among them; the girl bows gracefully, her smile sardonic, before she spits upon her hapless attacker's prone body and struts away.

"He's a damn fool, that one. Or new t' town, one or the other. And lucky; I've seen 'er kill men for less."

Elizabeth turns to the speaker, a weathered sailor whose blue eyes twinkle in bright contrast to the dirt and tar on his face. "Who was that girl?"

He peers at her, still shaking his head and chuckling with vast amusement. "Ye must be new as well, lad. Just about ev'rybody round about these parts knows Nichole d'Bouvoire."

"Is she a pirate?"

"Guess ye could call 'er that. There's many men call her many things...wild woman, Jezebel, criminal, Captain...aye, many things, an' I suppose pirate be one of 'em."

"Captain? She's got her own ship?"

"An' runs 'er right under the nose of the Spanish Crown, full o' rum...an' other booty, when it suits 'er." His expression becomes suspicious. "'Ere...why d'ye want t' know, anyway?"

"I've never seen a woman like her before," says Elizabeth simply.

The man nods. "Aye, fair enough. Ain't many women like 'er, son, an' that's the truth."

* * *

Jack leans in close to the mirror, deeply absorbed in an activity that can only be described as "primping"; he barely acknowledges Elizabeth's entrance.

"You're supposed to be resting."

He applies kohl to his eyelids with a practiced hand. "I'm feeling quite well, now, thanks. And I find bedrest...solitary bedrest, that is...to be very dull."

Perching on the end of the bed, she scrutinizes him; he is still very...shirtless...but there is something different about his personage. She frowns, and finally pinpoints the oddity.

"You didn't..." She stares in shock. "You did! You combed your hair." Combed, but not washed; perhaps that is too much to hope for. His dreadlocks remain, and he has re-secured them with the same filthy red handkerchief she's never seen him without.

"As I believe I mentioned...I was bored." He puts the finishing touches on his eyes and turns, posing theatrically for her benefit. "What do you think?"

"Terrifying." But not nearly as dreadful as the thought that suddenly occurs to her. "Did you use _my_ comb?"

"Your--? Oh! Well, it was handy..."

She stalks past him and plucks it up from the side of the washbasin, holding it fastidiously between thumb and forefinger. The ivory teeth, once white, have acquired a grimy, oily sheen. "I suppose I can boil it," she mutters. "That should kill the lice."

"Lice? I must object. I do not have lice."

"Fleas, then," she says coolly; the offending object drops to the floor, a distasteful task for later. Gathering up her various packages, she tosses one to Jack, surprising him, though he catches it nonetheless. "I brought you a present."

His indignation vanishes. "A present? I love presents!" He turns the bundle over, examining it with childlike pleasure.

"Don't get too excited. It's only a shirt." She eyes him disapprovingly. "More of a present for me, really. If I have to look after you, I would prefer that you're properly clothed."

"Come, darling," he says, voice throaty. "I've seen the way you look at me. Admit it, you've been appreciatin' the scenery." He takes one step toward her, and then another, smirking; refusing to be intimidated, she meets and holds his gaze, but he continues advancing until just a few centimeters of empty space lie between them.

"I should slap you, Jack Sparrow," she whispers; she tries to retreat, to make the distance between their bodies safe again, only to discover that he has backed her up against the wall.

He looks down at her, considering, and she feels herself panicking under those relentless, nearly black eyes.

"Then why haven't you, I wonder?" The words are spoken very low, and his smile has suddenly changed from mocking to dangerous.

She fumbles for her belt where she has fastened her brand-new dagger, bought on impulse during her shopping expedition. But he is far too quick for her, catching her wrist tightly and blocking her range of motion with his other arm. "Now, love. That's not very nice..."

Elizabeth goes still. His gaze pins her as surely as his hand upon her wrist; she cannot look away. He seems to be searching her face, as if for the answer to some question that hangs unasked between them. Then, as abruptly as he cornered her, he releases her and moves away as if nothing has happened.

She wonders if he found whatever it was he was seeking, in her eyes.

Leaning back against the wall, her knees inexplicably weak, she wills her pounding heart to slow. Jack is now pacing the confines of the room, an activity that actually resembles something closer to an excessively restless, half-directed kind of wandering.

"Will you stop it," she snaps at him, when she's regained some of her composure.

He pauses by the window, looking fixedly out at a view which she knows consists of little more than the wall of the building behind the inn and a small bit of sky. "Can't help it, love. There is a reason why--given a choice, of course--I never spend more than a day or two landbound...savvy?" He turns back to her, and she thinks she catches a hint of desperation in his voice, though his expression is genial enough. "Come on, Elizabeth Turner, what say we take ourselves downstairs and have ourselves a drink or two this Sunday evening? Breathe in the sights, sounds and smells of Tortuga's finest den of infamy? Sounds tempting, does it not?"

"It sounds inexpressibly vile."

"Perfectly vile, darling, perfectly vile." He waves an expansive arm. "I'll even put on that shirt you bought me, and cover meself up all nice and proper. How does that strike your fancy?"

"That would be lovely," she says, icy. "But you can partake of Tortuga's bounty all on your own tonight, Captain. I endured it plenty and enough earlier today."

"Elizabeth. Darling. Please yourself, but do answer me this. Exactly what are you planning to do with yourself instead?"

She opens her mouth, closes it again.

"That's what I thought," he murmurs. "Really, m'dear, for a woman that jumps ship to escape a peaceful life in what I'm positive is a truly charming home, and especially for a woman I once saw leap without hesitation to battle with a troupe of skeletal miscreants who could not be killed, I find your sense of adventure...or lack thereof...sorely disappointing. I would have thought you less of a stick than your dear William, at the least."

That stings, and her head jerks up. "I am _not_ a stick," she snaps. But still she hesitates.

Jack steps towards her again, this time without any intimation of menace, and offers his arm with surprising equanimity; the gesture seems so natural that Elizabeth must remind herself that he is not and never has been a gentleman. "Come, love. Honestly. You look like you could use a bit of rum..."


	13. No Place For A Lady

**XII.  
No Place For a Lady  
**

_I said, 'My fair maid, pray whence have you strayed?  
_ _And are you some distance from home?'  
_ _'My home,' replied she, 'is a burden to me,  
_ _For there I must live all alone, alone,  
_ _For there I must live all alone._

\--"I Must Live All Alone"

* * *

"Remind me again why this was a good idea," Elizabeth grumbles. She shifts uncomfortably on the rough wooden bench and hunches her shoulders against the raucous noise of the tavern's common room.

Jack flags down a passing bar wench. "Rum, m'lady, is always a good idea." He secures two large flagons, thanking the serving girl with a wink and a brilliant smile, and pushes one over to Elizabeth. "Have yourself a drink of that, you'll feel better in no time."

"What is it?" She sniffs the drink warily, catching a whiff of lime under the strong odor of the alcohol.

"This, m'dear, is grog...the deliverance and purest joy in life of many a lonely, exhausted or freezing sailor. Go on, have a taste. Or a swig--faster you drink it, the better you'll like it." He adds, frowning, "And for pity's sake, relax if you don't want to call attention to yourself."

Scowling back at him, she adjusts her posture into something that vaguely approximates his lounging indolence, and takes a tiny sip of the noxious-smelling substance. To her surprise, she finds the cloying citrus flavor almost tolerable and the alcohol somewhat watered down from full strength.

Jack hoists his cup to her and tosses off about half of it with an appreciative grimace. "Good, eh?"

"Hardly what I'd call it." Nevertheless she takes another, slightly larger swallow, and welcomes the slow burn as the liquid slides down her throat, thinking to herself that she's probably making a mistake. But she's tired of thinking tonight, tired of worrying, tired of attempting to figure out what she's going to do and where she's going to go if she ever gets out of this godforsaken place.

"That's the way," he says approvingly. "I do believe I'll make a proper pirate's wench of you yet, Miss Swann."

She nearly chokes. "Just precisely what are you implying, Captain Sparrow?"

Eyes wide and innocent, he leans back in his seat. "I meant to imply nothing, m'lady, nothing untoward whatsoever." He lifts an eyebrow. "But by all means...tell me what you had in mind. Perhaps I can accommodate your expectations..."

Elizabeth, blushing furiously, is saved from responding by a mocking female voice that cuts easily through the surrounding clamor to interrupt their conversation.

"Well, I'll be damned," it drawls, "if it isn't the infamous Captain Jack Sparrow!"

"The one and only," he answers, grinning past Elizabeth's shoulder; she twists half-around, and recognizes the fiery-haired girl she noticed earlier that day, the one who humiliated the hapless scoundrel in the street. "Wonderful to see you, Nickie darling! Pull up a chair, by all means, join us."

"Thank you, Jack. But it's Nichole now, you know."

"Ah. I see what you mean, love," and Jack favors her with an exaggerated once-over. "It does suit you, I'll allow, for all I prefer a pretty lass in a pretty dress."

Elizabeth glances from one to the other of them, nonplussed, for there's some meaning that's passed between them that she can't quite parse.

"Of course you do," Nichole says dryly, sliding onto the bench beside Jack, and her eyes flick to Elizabeth; there's sly amusement in them, in her tone, as if at some private jest. "And who's this, then?"

"Leslie Swann, meet Nichole d'Bouvoire," says Jack, magnanimous.

Nichole d'Bouvoire gives her a curious look, but extends a hand across the table amiably enough. Elizabeth shakes it; the other woman's grip is firm and callused as any sailor's. "It's a pleasure to meet you, Miss d'Bouvoire."

"Likewise." Nichole's shrewd green eyes are still watching her appraisingly. Elizabeth fidgets uneasily under her gaze. "Though you needn't bother with the 'Miss.'"

Jack drapes an arm around the girl's shoulders. "Have a drink, Nichole, my sweet, and do tell me how you've been occupying yourself these days."

Nichole accepts the drink, but not the affectionate gesture, shaking him off and glaring at him dangerously until he subsides, pouting. Relieved to no longer be the subject of the woman's unnerving scrutiny, Elizabeth nurses her drink and listens to them regale one another with what are probably vastly exaggerated tales of plunder, flagrant disregard for port authorities, brushes with various hostile forces, daring escapes, and cleverly planned raids.

She observes Nichole furtively. The woman's bright hair is gathered away from her face by a beaded blue cloth, but flows freely down her back; she sprawls on her seat like a man, one leg stretched out negligently to the side, her shirt open at the neck and revealing just a hint of cleavage. Despite her unladylike posture, however, she possesses full feminine curves and seems unafraid of who notices them--and Elizabeth sees Jack notice them repeatedly--probably because she knows she has the skill and speed to defend herself against unwanted male attentions if the need should arise.

Jack pours himself yet another drink--at least the fourth, by Elizabeth's count--from the pitcher the pair of them have ordered. "...So where have you hidden the _Seahawk_? Or did you just arrive in this delightful city this morning?"

"The _Seahawk_ 's gone," Nichole says shortly. "I lost her." Her fist slams down onto the table, startling Elizabeth and apparently Jack as well, as he jumps and sidles away from her slightly. "Those bloody Spanish bastards sunk her three weeks ago, and I nearly went down with her." Her face is tight. "I lost some good men, too, Jack. And all my profit."

Jack nods. "But you don't care so much about the profit, aye, and grievous though it might be, men can be replaced. I'm so very sorry, love." He speaks with uncharacteristic gentleness, and seems for once to be utterly sincere.

"It's just a boat," Nichole says, voice flat. " _Was_ just a boat. I'll get another one." She shrugs. "Morena's been after me for years. My luck just ran out, is all."

"I've heard tell of him. Not a nice man, from all that tell it."

"And when I catch up with him, he'll be a dead man," says Nichole, as calmly as if she's discussing the weather. "They say he was here last night. I didn't know til morning, or he'd never have left."

"I almost pity the man," Jack starts, and then stops as the female pirate's fingers curl reflexively on the table like claws. "He believes you dead, am I right?"

"He's more the fool for it."

"I would offer you a place on the _Pearl_ , if I ever thought you would accept it."

"Aye, and I thank you, Jack Sparrow, but you know there is no joy for me in sailing under another's command. Even yours."

They sit in silence for a minute or so; Jack fills their cups again. Elizabeth frowns. She hasn't realized that hers was empty. Now that she thinks about it, however, the packed tavern has grown rather warm; she wonders idly if she's getting drunk, and is about to open her mouth to ask Jack if he's overheated too when Nichole finally stirs herself from her reverie.

"So what about you, Jack? I take it the _Pearl_ 's up and left without you again." Her eyes slide back to Elizabeth. "Doing anything...interesting...while you're waiting out the Spanish?"

Jack's smile widens slowly to a wolfish grin. "Nothing that you would find the least bit interesting, I fear."

Elizabeth looks away hurriedly, and takes another drink.

"Is that so," says Nichole, leaning forward with an equally feral glint in her eyes. "Leslie, my lad, you've been rather silent. Tell me, what do you think of Tortuga? Has Captain Sparrow been showing you the sights?"

"What--? Oh! Tortuga. I find it fascinating, really--"

"I'm sure you do." Nichole sits back triumphantly, smirking, and turns to Jack, who is pretending to be mesmerized by the pattern of woodgrain on the table. "Where did you find this one, Jack Sparrow, and what exactly are you planning on doing with her when you're done with her?"

Elizabeth freezes with her cup halfway to her lips, and glares accusingly at Jack.

He looks inordinately amused. "This one's not mine, d'Bouvoire, and as to where she's going from here, that's her affair as well, so you may as well ask her, not me. And don't you blame me for this, missy," he adds to Elizabeth. "I didn't give you away, I swear to you. You did that beautifully, all on your own."

Nichole laughs, startlingly, throwing back her head and guffawing like a sailor. "Oh, please. I knew long before I sat myself down with you two that Leslie here wasn't what he seemed."

"How did you know?" Elizabeth demands, attempting to gather her scattered thoughts and finding it takes her much longer than usual.

"I was watching you both from across the room." Nichole raises an eyebrow. "I saw the way Captain Sparrow looked at you...and I know that look as well as any. At first I wondered if ol' Jack had acquired a taste for the lads since I knew him last--" Jack makes a noise like a strangled laugh-- "but as soon as I saw your face, I knew you were a woman."

"You see? I knew this was your fault," Elizabeth says loudly in Jack's direction. To her horror she hears herself slur the words. She really needs to stop drinking rum now.

Well, maybe one more sip. It tastes so good, and it prevents her from caring about whether or how Jack Sparrow has been looking at her. Or from wondering just how long it's been since Nichole has been the recipient of such dubious attentions--and why should she care about that, anyway? No reason. No reason at all. Jack has looked thus at more women than not, certainly, and she--Elizabeth--is naught but the most recent lady to be so...insulted. And yet, she cannot find this comforting, not in the least.

"I don't doubt that it was mostly his fault." Elizabeth realizes belatedly that Nichole has risen from the table; that she's almost missed the other woman's pointed glance. Misses the point of it, regardless: warning? Sympathy? Something else unidentifiable? "Still, you should be more careful, lass. This is no place for a lady. In fact, I must be on my way myself; I have business to attend to." She bows sardonically. "As, I am sure, do you. It was lovely meeting you... 'Leslie.' And Jack, as always, a pleasure."

And then Nichole is gone, as quickly as she appeared. Jack gazes after her. "How I do love that girl..."

"Do you?" Elizabeth asks, rather too sharply, and then rushes on. "I saw her fighting, when I was out. Her opponent never had a chance."

"Aye...wields the fastest sword in the Islands, fights viciously given the slightest provocation, a loyal friend and a formidable enemy...quite a woman, is Nichole d'Bouvoire." He finishes his drink, though the eyes that meet hers remain unclouded. "So, what did you think of her?"

"She frightens me," says Elizabeth. "And I wish I could be like her." The unguarded statement slips out, surprising her.

Once again, Jack pours them both more rum. "And why's that, love?"

"Because..." Why was it again? "Because she's not afraid to do exactly as she likes. Because she can do exactly as she likes."

"Ah." He inclines his head slightly to the side, as if a thought has just occurred to him. "Just out of curiosity...what are you doing here, exactly?"

Wide-eyed, she points at him reproachfully. "You dragged me with you to be your drinking partner. Is your memory that bad, Jack Sparrow?"

"No, no. What I mean is, why--" his gesture takes in her clothes, her cap, her general situation-- "Why did you do all this? Why did you leave your happy little home and your comfortable existence in Port Royal, and stow away on a ship to Tortuga, under your husband's very nose?"

"Oh." She considers this. "I was bored," she says vaguely.

"With dear William?"

"No!" She sits forward a little too fast, sways, and grips the table to right herself. "I felt trapped. Living the life I've always lived, in the place I've always lived it, a life in which every day was the same as the last. Drowning in the ordinary." The words spill from her, their urgency astonishing her with the depth of her own emotion. "Will was the thing--the only thing that made it endurable, that made me feel alive. And then," she says, almost to herself, "then Will stopped coming home."

She pauses and looks up, to find Jack watching her intently; he says nothing.

Dropping her eyes, she traces the irregular ridges lining the table with a wayward finger. "It happened gradually, I suppose," she says. "At first he would stay home for many weeks, even months, between voyages. That was after I had been so ill, when we were still newly married. But his absences grew longer, and our times together shorter and shorter. This last time he was gone for more than a season--almost half a year."

"It's in his blood, love," Jack says softly. "Bootstrap's blood. His father was the same. Never could stay away from the sea for long, even to watch his only son grow up."

Her mouth twists in bitter acknowledgment. "I may as well not even have a husband."

"Will loves you, darling. But you must understand something. He can't help himself, any more than old Bill ever could. The sea calls to him, and he has to go to it." Jack leans toward her seriously. "He can't fight that call. And neither can you..."

"I know that!" she says, fierce. "I know Will. I know what he loves and why he loves it. God forbid I should try to take such a thing away from him!" She draws a ragged breath. "I only wish he would take me with him."

"Well, as you may have noticed, your husband has been engaging in some...hazardous activities of late. Doubtless he feels obligated to protect you."

She bridles at that. "I don't want to be protected. Do I look like a woman who needs protection? Do I, Jack?"

He catches her hand, which has somehow wandered across the table to brush his arm. "No, love, not in the slightest." He seems to be laughing at her. She focuses on his face with only a little difficulty. "You do, however, look like a woman who's had rather a lot of rum."

He _is_ making fun of her! She tries to pull her hand away, unsuccessfully. "Here...let go, you...you..." His grip is gentle but inexorably firm. "Come on, Jack, stop it." But she is laughing suddenly too, giggling like a girl, in fact.

She meets his eyes, then, to find them extraordinarily dark and fastened intently upon her, his expression unfathomable; he is no longer laughing. He releases her hand so abruptly she almost falls off the bench.

"Entirely too much rum, I do believe," he murmurs. Rising, he moves around the table to her. "Come. It's high time we called it a night, love."

She pouts. "But I was just starting to enjoy myself!"

"Aye. That's what concerns me." He peels her unwilling fingers from around her cup.

"You're very cruel to me, Captain Sparrow," she mutters as he hauls her to her feet, and casts him her best melting gaze from under her eyelashes. "I can't think why you wouldn't want me to have a good time."

"Move, darling, before you call any more attention to yourself--" he clears his throat-- "and before all Tortuga begins to assume I'm a lover of boys, as did Nichole."

This strikes her as unbelievably funny, and she collapses against him in paroxysms of giggles.

He puts both hands on her shoulders and gives her a little shake. "You're not helping, love." She blinks at him innocently; he sighs. " _Please_ move?"

Giving him a military nod, she feigns solemnity. "Aye, aye...lead on, Captain."

He sighs again, and tucks his arm about her waist to guide her as they make their way across the crowded room.

* * *

Jack has just decided that he's gotten Elizabeth away safely when she stops short at the door of their room.

"Jack?" she inquires sweetly.

He cautiously loosens his hold on her waist, since she seems to be maintaining her balance fairly well, and looks down at her. "What now, love?"

She sways slightly, and he puts out a hand to steady her. At his touch, she glances down but doesn't object. "Were you and Nichole...you know..."

"Lovers? Aye, we had our times together. Years ago, that was." He pauses, remembering, and chuckles. "Why, m'dear? Not jealous, are we?"

" _Jealous_? Why would I be?" But her eyes are huge and luminous in the lamplight, and she steps toward him, her body brushing lightly against his. He inhales sharply and moves away from her a little. "What's the matter, Captain?" She takes another step forward, erasing the distance he's created between them. "Am I making you nervous? You, the famous...the notorious Jack Sparrow?"

He swears softly under his breath, feeling the wall at his back. He hasn't been so effectively cornered in years. "Elizabeth Turner," he says, hearing his voice go ragged. "Have you even given a second's thought to what it is you're doing?"

She moves again, those eyes still fixed on him under half-closed lids, her breath warm on the hollow of his throat, and she's playing with fire, flirting with disaster.

"I'm tired of thinking," she says.

And then she's pressing herself against him, her hands lacing around the back of his neck to pull his lips down to hers, and he too forgets rational thought as the soft heat of her floods his body, all other awareness lost to the rum-sweetness of her mouth.


	14. Lost

**XIII.  
Lost  
**

_My boat's by the tower, and my bark's on the bay,  
and both must be gone at the dawn of the day.  
The moon's in her shroud, and to light thee afar  
On the deck of the daring's a lovelighted star.  
So wake, lady wake, I am waiting for thee,  
Oh, this night or never my bride thou shalt be..._

\--"The Pirate Song"

* * *

"Sail ho! Nor'west an' bearin' on us!"

The cry from the man on watch above is followed immediately by a stream of eloquent curses from the wheel, and Will winces. Some of Anamaria's most colorful epithets feature his name rather prominently, and reflect unfavorably on his mother's honor.

He springs onto the starboard bulwarks, shading his eyes against the lowering sun, and sees--still far off but quickly gaining on them--the familiar clean lines and proud masts of a British naval vessel.

And under the Union Jack flies a white anchor and stars on a blue field.

_Why is Norrington's flagship ranging so far from Kingston Harbor?_

"Take her hard to portside, lads!" Ana shouts; a quick check of wind speed and angles tells Will that she intends to pass the other ship at as far a distance as she can manage.

"Ana, wait!" He pounds up the steps to the poop deck, taking them two at a time. "Hail them. That's the _Dauntless_."

"I know full well what ship she be!" Ana glares. "I'll ask you to remember who's in command here. It ain't your call, Turner."

"Aye. But if you allow me to board her, you'll be well rid of me."

A measured, narrow-eyed glance, assessing risk versus reward. After a moment she says, ungraciously, "All right. I'll do it. But if you get us all killed, I'll kill you myself. Don't go thinkin' I won't."

"I don't doubt you for a second," Will assures her. "I'm not that stupid."

Perhaps the words betray some hint of amusement or challenge, for she scowls at him until he takes a hasty step back. "Well, looks like this here'll be your chance to prove it, then!"

* * *

"She's heading straight toward us, sir."

Commodore Norrington lowers his spyglass in blank disbelief. "I know that ship..."

"Commodore!" Hayes, one of the younger, greener officers, rushes up to him. "She's raising a white flag, sir."

"What?" Norrington squints at the approaching ship. Sure enough, the flag rippling on the topmast does not bear the skull and crossbones he'd anticipated, but a rather tattered piece of white cloth. "That can't be right."

"Why not?" Hayes frowns, puzzled.

The Commodore arches an eyebrow. "That, my man, is the _Black Pearl_. I know her Captain. And Jack Sparrow would never raise a flag of truce. It must be a trick."

"Captain Jack Sparrow?" the officer says, in an awed voice. "The pirate? I've heard of him. Thought he was more legendary than real."

"No, no. He's real enough, I fear."

"Really, sir?" Hayes gazes at the approaching vessel with something frightfully close to hero-worship. "I heard he's one of the best pirates in the Caribbean, you know."

"Now that," Norrington snaps, "is most certainly only legend, Hayes." He makes a mental note to speak to Groves at the next opportunity. The shameless hero-worship of pirates, he will remind the Lieutenant, should not be encouraged among members of the Royal Navy.

He trains his glass once more on the _Pearl_ , but sees no sign of Sparrow. He does, however, recognize the woman at the helm as one of the pirate's officers; the first mate, perhaps. She appears to be engaged in vehement debate with someone. Not, Norrington decides, the Captain. This man ties his hair back into his sailor's queue too neatly; his gestures are too direct, his stance far too steady.

"Odd..."

Then the man turns to point toward the _Dauntless,_ and the Commodore stiffens. Looks again.

"What the devil?" he mutters. "Turner, you bloody idiot, you better have a good explanation for this..." _And he better have Mrs. Turner safe with him, as well._

He scans the _Pearl_ 's decks, and his lips tighten.

Elizabeth is nowhere to be seen upon them.

* * *

"Here's what we do," Anamaria announces, her tone implying that she is bestowing a tremendous favor. "You row on over there with Joshamee--go on up to your 'mates'--" the word is spoken with immense disdain-- "and we'll be off soon as he brings the boat back. I won't waste a skiff on you, and you better hope them 'Coats don't try nothin'...or you'll be the first to get a bullet to the head."

"Thank you, Ana." Will extends his hand, and she shakes it grudgingly.

"You owe me, Turner," she says. "Don't you forget now, you promised me compensation for this errand...because I haven't."

"I won't forget," Will tells her.

"You'd best not. Now go. And make it quick."

Gibbs claps Will on the shoulder. "Come, lad, let's get this over with. An' don't ye worry about Ana...she'll try to blame ye for all this trouble, but we all know 'tis bad luck to have a woman at the helm." He chuckles.

Anamaria, stalking away, turns 'round at this. "I heard that, Joshamee Gibbs, you worthless son of a dog's arse..."

"My apologies, ma'am," Gibbs answers, unperturbed. "Just my little joke, y'know."

"You're lucky you're Jack's man," Ana growls. "And lucky again you're the sailor you are, Joshamee. Even so, I've a mind to leave you with the whelp if you don't stow that lip o' yours."

Gibbs chuckles, but he touches his cap and sets to work in silence.

"I don't think she likes me much," says Will, as they unlash the boat.

Gibbs grunts. "She likes ye as much as she likes any man. Granted, that's not sayin' much; but she's tetchier now than usual. I wager she's mostly just anxious to go back for the Cap'n."

"Never would've guessed she liked him that much, either."

"Aye. An odd 'un, be old Ana. And," the sailor adds, as the skiff is lowered into the water, "a good enough Cap'n herself, when all be said an' done--woman or no."

"I certainly never thought I'd hear you say that, Gibbs," laughs Will. "So you've changed your opinion of the fair sex, have you?"

"Now, I ain't sayin' that, young Will. Them women ought to stay off the seas and keep to their own proper business, like the good Lord intended. I just said Miss Ana makes a passable sailor. Don't mean it's right."

"Perhaps not all women are equally fitted to the life of house and hearth," Will suggests cautiously.

Gibbs snorts, derisive, but Elizabeth's passionate plea of a few days ago echoes suddenly in Will's mind. _"I have naught to do but sit and sew lace on petticoats and embroider cushions...I'm sick to death of this place..."_ and he finds himself thanking Providence that he wasn't born female.

He's likewise grateful that he didn't give way under the influence of his beloved's imploring eyes and fervent words. He shudders at the thought of his wife in the hands of Captain Morena. From all he knows and has heard of the man, Morena's obsession with exacting revenge on his enemies is matched only by his cruelty toward women, indeed toward anyone weaker than him, and by his twisted enjoyment of such brutality.

 _If I had lost her to him...my God..._ He cannot even put that horror to words. But Elizabeth is safe and sound in Port Royal, he reminds himself, and he will see her soon if all goes well. He imagines the surprise and pleasure with which she will greet him at the door, the way she'll throw her arms around his neck and kiss him before the eyes of the entire household in the kind of indecorous display of conjugal affection that was her habit during their first year or so of marriage, and which he did not know how much he'd missed until now. Perhaps she'll still be sulking, but when he tells her about his near-scrape with death--the edited version, of course--she'll be so relieved that he escaped unharmed, and that she did not after all chance such danger herself, that she'll forgive him instantly.

This gratifying fantasy serves to mitigate his dread at the prospect of explaining the loss of the _Lady Swann_ to the Governor and his patrons; until he is jarred out of it rudely by a sudden joint uproar that has arisen from the decks of both ships.

"Hmm," says Gibbs. "What d'ye reckon all that noise is about, lad?"

Will cranes his neck, trying to see past the stern of the _Pearl_ and out to the open ocean indicated by the shouts and pointing fingers. They have almost reached the _Dauntless_ when he finally catches sight of another ship, riding from the south at full sail in their direction.

"Damn it," he mutters. "Those bastards don't give up easily, do they..."

* * *

Climbing from the skiff a few minutes later onto the _Dauntless_ 's main deck, Will finds himself immediately faced with a restlessly pacing Commodore Norrington.

"Would you like to tell me what in God's green earth is going on here, Turner?" he demands harshly. "And," he points at the fast-approaching vessel, "would you know, by any chance, what ship that is?"

"That, I am guessing, is _La Venganza_ , sir," Will says, grim-voiced. "The pride and joy of Captain Francisco Morena, Officer of the Spanish Crown."

"The Spanish Crown?" Will watches as the full import of this registers on Norrington's face. "Morena's after you? Where is your ship, man?"

" _The Lady Swann_ was captured, along with the rest of the crew," Will answers, surprised by the man's reaction. Norrington, while always civil in conversation, has never bothered to pretend to like him, even before Will made good his claim upon the affections of Norrington's intended bride. Now, however, the Commodore's characteristic icy cool has slipped, more than a little, and he appears implausibly concerned by Will's misfortune.

But Will is even more astonished when Norrington grips him roughly by the shoulders. "Good God, man! Tell me she's safe. Where is she?"

"I told you. The Spanish took her."

"Not the ship, fool!"

"Not the--" Will shakes his head, completely baffled now. "What in the blazes are you talking about, Commodore?"

"Your wife, Turner," Norrington grates. " _Where is Elizabeth_?"

Unable to comprehend Norrington's meaning, Will stares at him; the Commodore stares back, agitation and worry clear in his pale eyes.

"Dear God," Norrington says, setting his jaw. "You didn't know."

"Elizabeth...?" Will says slowly. "I don't understand. Elizabeth is at home, in Port Royal--"

But Norrington interrupts him. "No. Elizabeth Turner left Port Royal five days ago. On your ship, without your knowledge."

It takes a second for the words to sink in to Will's reeling brain. _If she was stowed away on my ship, then..._

"You lost her, didn't you," Norrington says, flat-voiced.

And in that moment, as the sun sinks beneath a brilliant orange horizon, the world, as Will Turner thought he knew it, falls all to pieces.

* * *

Jack Sparrow tastes, not unexpectedly, of rum.

Elizabeth loses herself in him, in the intoxicating sensation of his lips and tongue on hers, fitting herself to his lean frame; the urgency of their kiss robs her of breath, and she moans into his plundering mouth. When Jack pulls away a little, she gasps; but before she can gather her wits, he has turned the tables on her, pinning her between his body and the door in one quick motion.

"Thought you had me there, didn't you, darling."

"You--" But his lips close over hers again, hungrily, and she abandons speech without contest, letting him take it as well as her. His knee insinuates itself between her trousered legs; his hands tighten on her hips, lifting her until she recognizes, with a shock of lust, the hard length of him against her thigh. Instinctively, she presses even closer, eliciting a small desperate noise from deep in his throat.

She feels him move, one hand fumbling for the latch on the door. When he finally manages to wrench it open, she nearly falls, unbalanced by the alcohol she's drunk and a swirling, limb-weakening fire in her blood that she finds utterly unfamiliar, but not at all unpleasant. Only Jack's arm at her back keeps her upright; she leans her head on his chest, listening to their hearts race in tandem.

_Stop now, Elizabeth Turner...while it's not too late..._

"You all right, love?" he says in her ear, and his fingers slip beneath her thin blouse to trace their way up her spine. She shudders at the feather-light touch, and his simultaneous response is unmistakable.

She inhales. "Jack--"

He looks down at her; his eyes glitter in the dim light, black as she's ever seen them, with desire. "What is it, Elizabeth?"

She has opened her mouth to say, _I can't_. But those eyes are her undoing, those dark eyes and his parted lips and the way he speaks her name; and she knows then that if she tells him no, he will not force her.

Under her shirt, his hands splay across the small of her back and draw her towards him, gently but inexorably. At the contact, her breath trembles out of her.

 _Too late. It's already happening._ "Nothing," she murmurs, and shifts against him, pulling his mouth down to hers again in a kiss that quickly becomes anything but gentle. She surrenders to the consuming heat of it; he grips her waist, pushing her step by slow step towards the bed.

He breaks off the kiss and she sucks air into her lungs gratefully, then forgets how to breathe again when his teeth close lightly on her neck. One judicious yank, and the cloth binding her breasts falls to the floor. His lips are traveling down her collarbone now; she whimpers as his hands begin a thorough exploration of their own. She's lucky that he's backed her up to the bed by this time, because at his practiced touch her knees give way completely.

He bends over her, a self-satisfied smile playing over his face, and she thinks inconsequentially, before she ceases to think altogether, that in all the time she's ever spent with Jack Sparrow, she's never heard him go quite so long without saying a single word.

* * *

A little later, she says, somewhat shakily, "...Jack?"

"Aye?"

"Just where did you learn how to do _that_?"

"Apparently you've never been to India..."


	15. Moonlight And Shadows

**XIV.  
Moonlight and Shadows  
**

_Oh, believe not what the landsmen say  
Who tempt with doubts thy constant mind,  
They'll tell thee sailors when away,  
In every port a mistress find:  
Yes, yes, believe them when they tell thee so,  
For thou art present, for thou art present  
Wheresoe'er I go._

\--"Black-Eyed Susan"

* * *

"No." Will finds his voice at last. "No. I don't believe it. How do you know?"

"She left a letter for the Governor, detailing her plan. Of course," Norrington adds coldly, "she didn't know the danger involved."

"But...why? How? I never saw her! The _Lady Swann_ 's not that big of a ship."

"Your wife is a clever enough woman. If somewhat imprudent. I'm sure she found it easy to remain...overlooked."

Will gazes out at the darkening ocean, unseeing. "If Morena..." His eyes focus on the approaching _Venganza_. "I'll kill him," he chokes out. He hates Morena for taking her, is furious with Elizabeth for her recklessness, but most of all he is angry at himself; for not stopping her, for letting his guard down in Tortuga, for not knowing that she was there at all.

Without warning, smoke blooms from the gunports of _La Venganza_ , the thunder of her cannon echoing across the water and startling him back to the here-and-now. Surely Morena, though admittedly unhinged, would not fire against two ships at once? But no sickening crunch of breaking wood follows the flash and boom of the guns, and he realizes belatedly--his thoughts still fogged with fear and anguish--that the other vessel is firing blanks. Signal cannon.

"They wish to negotiate," Norrington says, watching him.

Will's fingers tighten on the hilt of his sword. He'll show that bastard "negotiation"...

Joshamee Gibbs puts a warning hand on his arm, and Will starts. He'd forgotten the other man was there.

"You'll get her back, son," the old sailor says, voice somber. "I remember the lass well, and I know as well as you do that she ain't the kind to give up easy. She'll be fine, mark me words...but she'll need you to keep yourself alive to go after her."

Will bows his head. "Aye, Gibbs, you're right. Let's find out what the scum wants from us, Commodore."

Norrington gives a terse order to his men, which is taken up with naval efficiency; the _Dauntless_ 's guns roar in answer to _La Venganza_. Will's stomach tightens as the descent of swinging lights mark the lowering of several boats from the side of the black hulk, now all that can be seen of the Spanish ship in the fading light. If Morena has hurt Elizabeth, even so much as touched her, Will still means to take him. Alone, if he has to. Along with the rest of _La Venganza_ 's crew, if that's what the task requires. He would normally decry the sacrifice of innocent bystanders, but all such noble scruples have vanished beneath an overwhelming wave of rage that's unlike any he's ever felt before.

He struggles to gain control of his murderous instincts.

_Wait_ , he tells himself.

_Wait for the opportune moment..._

Her name echoes over and over in his mind.

_Elizabeth...Elizabeth, my life, my love...Elizabeth, **why**?_

* * *

"You stay out of this," hisses Norrington to Will as the Spanish party steps aboard the _Dauntless_.

"She's my wife, Commodore."

"And that is precisely the reason why you should not participate." Norrington fixes him with a steely glance. "Let me do the talking, Master Turner." He grasps Will's shoulder briefly, in a gesture of unexpected warmth. "I will do everything in my power to ensure that Elizabeth is returned unharmed."

He turns and strides toward their visitors, crisp military pride apparent in every inch of his figure. Will tenses; he has picked Morena out from his cronies in the shifting light and shadow cast by the _Dauntless_ 's lanterns. Taller and leaner than the rest of the men, Morena's sunken cheeks, sallow skin and exquisitely curled moustaches would set him apart, even without the fluffy Captain's plume adorning his hat.

The man bows ornately to Norrington, who responds by inclining his upper body stiffly in the much more reserved British gesture.

"Commodore."

"Captain," says Norrington, miraculously maintaining his lofty air even though Morena tops him by several inches and thus cannot be looked at down the Commodore's nose. "What brings you so far from sovereign waters this evening, sir?"

Morena's white teeth flash. "The open sea belongs to no man, Senor Commodore," he says in perfect, if heavily accented, English. "Tonight, my duty has led me to pursue--" he points to the Pearl, still fetched up some distance away from them-- "that ship."

"Why then, Captain, do you not hold council with them? Those who sail that vessel are no friends of mine, nor of the British Crown."

A second wolflike smile. "And yet I have reason to believe this ship now carries the fugitive I have been seeking."

Norrington raises an eyebrow, polite incredulity. "Do you accuse me of harboring criminals, sir?"

"Without your knowledge, surely, Commodore, and without intent," Morena says smoothly, executing another quick bow. "This is why I now ask you peaceably to yield this outlaw into my custody before you go on your way."

"And who is this man you speak of?"

Morena fingers the hilt of his cutlass, his features wiped clean of any facsimile of mirth. In the light of the rising moon his angular face seems almost skeletal, the impression enhanced by the merciless set of his mouth and his glittering eyes. "A murderer," he says quietly. And points directly at Will Turner.

" _That_ man, senor."

* * *

Captain Jack Sparrow stares up into the shadows of the ceiling's cross-beams. He's never been able to sleep well on solid ground, without the comforting roll of the waves lulling him to his rest. Tonight, however, he reasons, considering all the rum he's consumed and the other... _activities_ that followed the consumption of said rum, he should be blissfully unconscious by now.

He stirs, turning to contemplate the motionless form of the woman next to him. Apparently untouched by the insomnia that plagues him, she lies half-curled away from him, head cushioned in the crook of her arm like a child's.

But she is certainly no child, no virgin miss. His mouth curves slightly at the memory of how she cried out and clung to him wildly when he finally took her. How his name sounded on her lips as he brought her to the height of her pleasure, begging him for more, ever more, urging him on. He's had enough well-bred girls before her, and not a one of them was quite like this one. A passionate, sensuous, inventive creature, sadly wasted on an absent husband whose affection, from all she has and has carefully not said, seems to be mysteriously failing of late. He always suspected that such tendencies lay beneath her imperious manner and sharp tongue; but her clear intent to seduce him and be seduced, the cleverness of her delicate hands and her fine, fine mouth, her utter abandon, have all certainly far exceeded his expectations. And there are such a great many diversions of the flesh which he has yet to share with her.

Allowing his mind full license to explore the possibilities of that thought, in addition to a few choice images from earlier in the evening, he stretches and yawns with the slow delight of a satiated feline, slipping an arm around her unresponsive waist, inhaling her scent, an intoxicating mingling of rosewater and the musk of their union. The delicious lassitude of after-love begins to spread through his veins at last, weighting his limbs; yielding to it as willingly as she recently has to him, he is soon deeply asleep.

And so he doesn't see when the moon, risen almost to zenith, shines through the little window and bathes the face of the woman beside him in its pale light, revealing the glimmering silver tracks of tears drying on her fair skin. He doesn't notice that she is and has been wide awake, her slow breathing the trick of a practiced dissembler, used to pretending peace of mind in intimate quarters.

In fact, Elizabeth Turner does not sleep until the stark blue stain of morning seeps at last into the room. The moon has long set when she finally closes her now painfully-dry eyes and drifts into a dreamless grey slumber that bears little, if any, resemblance to rest.


	16. Sea Change

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There's a hint of dub-con here, which could be triggering for some.

**XV.  
Sea Change  
**

_Must I be bound, O and she go free!  
Must I love one thing that does not love me!  
Why should I act such a childish part,  
And love a girl that will break my heart._

\--"The Water Is Wide"

* * *

Commodore Norrington frowns at Will Turner, dismayed.

"It seems that you have some explaining to do, Master Turner."

"I am no murderer, by any law but his." Turner steps forward out of the shadows, his hand inching toward his sword, eyes fixed on Francisco Morena, who meets his gaze coldly, unmoving. "What," he grates out, "have you done with my wife, you scheming son of a--" He bites off the expletive at Norrington's quelling glance.

"Ah." Morena's mouth curls in a sneer of unholy satisfaction. "So there is one you care for, after all. _Que sorpresa, mi amigo...que sorpresa_."

The sound of Will's sword leaving its sheath reverberates across the deck of the _Dauntless_ as the blade halts a few inches from the Spaniard's throat; the man doesn't even flinch, though Norrington makes a strangled noise. Behind Morena, his silent men shift uneasily, but are stilled by a quick gesture from their Captain

"If you've touched her--"

"I understand." Morena reaches behind him in one swift motion, and Will, the barest shadow of alarm crossing his face, is suddenly staring down the barrel of an ornate but obviously highly functional silver pistol now aimed directly at his forehead.

"You will kill me," Morena says evenly. " _Si_. But understand this, my friend--" the soft click of the gun as he cocks it echoes in the watchful hush that has fallen around the two men-- "I will take you with me to hell, so it matters not. Although," he adds with a thoughtful air, "it would be a far swifter death for you than I would favor."

Will holds his sword steady; the two stand, eyes locked, at impasse.

"So you would die for her," Morena says, conversationally. " _Muy interesante_. The whelp would give his life for _su puta_..." he spits out the word, and Will moves fractionally, snarling. The edge of his blade now rests lightly against the man's sinewy neck, but still Morena shows no fear, continuing to speak as if nothing has happened. "Much as I would have died for my son."

"Gentlemen," Norrington interjects. "Perhaps we could--"

"I did not murder him," Will hisses. "It was an accident. He stepped into my blade."

"You struck him down, a lad barely seventeen." The Captain's voice drips with disdain. "And he was just another feather in your hat, William Turner. You have taken my child from me, you have burned more than a few peaceful Spanish vessels, you have fired on enough cities in Hispaniola...and you claim to be a man of honor? You may have a Writ of Immunity from the British Crown," and here he glares at Norrington, "but after all, you are no more than a common criminal...a pirate."

The Commodore clears his throat. "If you would lower your weapons, gentlemen, we can discuss our differences in a more civilized fashion..."

The two men look at him, then back at one another. A long moment stretches near to its breaking point. Then both sword and pistol are warily withdrawn, their owners still watching one another narrowly. Norrington sighs with great relief.

"Thank you," he says, sincerely. "Captain Morena, allow me to say that I am deeply sorry for your loss, and we shall address your grievance, and your claim, as the law requires. But let us first attend to the matter of Captain Turner's crew, who I understand were taken into custody during your attack on his vessel...is that correct?"

"They await their trial now, as enemies of the King of Spain."

Will looks distressed. "My crew should not be held accountable for my crimes," he says urgently. "They followed my orders as was their duty..."

Norrington holds up a hand, and Turner subsides, biting his lip. "There was also a passenger among those aboard," he tells Morena. "A lady, in fact, the daughter of the Governor of British Jamaica. Do you know of whom I speak?"

" _Si_." Morena's smile is slow and dangerous. "Now I understand more clearly, _Senor_ Commodore. There is more at stake here, then."

Will twitches.

"The Governor has charged me with ensuring that she is safely returned to him." Norrington silently wills Turner to control himself, for Elizabeth's sake. "Perhaps we can negotiate a fair price for her protection...and her freedom."

"Ah, but she is not only the daughter of a Governor, _Senor_." Morena's smile widens, and he turns to Will. "I am so sorry, I did not know," he murmurs. "She is very dear to you, is she not?"

A series of emotions pass over Will Turner's features: mingled realization, rage, and fear. Norrington feels a similar jolt of alarm. He had assumed from the Spaniard's answer to Turner's original accusation that the man was at least partially aware of Elizabeth's identity.

"I might even go so far as to say most dear," Morena continues. "And I have had her in my grasp all this time...a great oversight on my part..."

"You bastard," Turner says, voice cracking. "You wouldn't...you can't..."

But Morena overrides him ruthlessly. "It is perfect, more perfect than I had hoped. No, Commodore, I fear there is no price that could replace this opportunity. No gold will buy me the pleasure it will bring me to see the murderer of my only son watch his own beloved bleed to death before his eyes..."

"No..." Will chokes out.

"...Without even a chance to bid her farewell."

Norrington stares at him, aghast. "You wouldn't," he says, echoing Will.

"Ah, but you do not know me, _Senor_ ," Morena says. "William Turner does, however, and you can see as well as I that he believes me with all his heart."

Indeed, Will's bloodless face and anguished eyes reveal only too plainly that he does not doubt Morena's threat in the slightest.

Norrington crooks his finger behind his back.

"You will die first," he says calmly, hearing the simultaneous movement behind him that indicates the aiming of fifteen Navy-issue firearms in the direction of the small group of Spanish soldiers.

"Yet she will die all the same." The man has no fear, Norrington thinks. "The crew's execution has likely already been set, Senor Commodore, and if it is not, it will be."

"Surely your governor would not allow the execution of a lady..."

"Would you wager her life on that assumption, Senor?"

The Commodore hesitates. Something in Morena's tone has changed, striking a warning bell in Norrington's mind, telling him that he's missing something important. That somehow the Spaniard, even with half of the _Dauntless_ 's best officers' pistols trained on his little company, has gained the upper hand in this "negotiation."

"Take me."

The words are spoken somewhat indistinctly. Both Commodore and Captain turn to look at Will, who has finally stirred himself out of his frozen horror, though his eyes are still wide and wild like those of a man who has been given a glimpse of hell.

"What?" But Norrington feels almost sure that he knows what young Turner means. The man hasn't changed so much, after all.

"Take me instead of her," Will says, more steadily this time, though the strain in his voice is still unmistakable. "Hand the prisoners over unharmed into Commodore Norrington's charge, and I'll go without a fight, Morena."

A tense silence follows.

Morena smiles again, triumph gleaming in his black eyes.

"Now that, _mi amigo_ , is an exchange to which I may be persuaded to agree..."

* * *

Elizabeth Turner wakes reluctantly, pulled from unconsciousness by a pervasive sense of dread. The angle of the sunlight streaming through the window indicates that is already mid to late morning. Squinting against the brightness assaulting her eyes, her thoughts fogged and slow, she notices the dull ache in her head and an inexplicable soreness plaguing her muscles with some consternation.

She must have drunk far more rum than she had meant to. She shifts uneasily, remembering what has to have been an extraordinarily vivid dream from last night...a series of disconnected images and sense-memories flit through her mind, and her cheeks flush hotly as she recalls a few of the more prurient details.

The weight of his body on hers.

Her own voice, high and trembling with desire, calling out his name, and his breathless answer.

His intense focus on her suddenly broken by the wave of pleasure shaking them both, his face transformed and eyes distant until those long lashes drop to cover them...

She realizes then that she can still feel him, deep in the core of her. That under the light cotton coverlet, she's clothed in nothing but her thin blouse, and that it's unbuttoned. That the white fabric crumpled on the floor is the cloth she's been using to bind her breasts.

That there's someone lying beside her in the bed.

Pulling the linens up to her chin, she turns her head sharply to her right and is confronted with the magnificent sight of a very naked Captain Jack Sparrow. The sheet barely covers his slender hips, and it's all too clear that the only thing he's wearing is her makeshift bandage...

He blinks at her sleepily.

"Morning, love."

_Oh, dear God..._

The previous evening's events rush back into her consciousness in their entirety, and she hurriedly tears her horrified gaze away from the clean line of muscle that delineates his lower abdomen, looking fixedly at the ceiling instead. Her traitorous brain informs her that not only has she already seen that line, but that she is now intimately familiar with its coordinates.

Long, lazy fingers tangle themselves in her hair before trailing casually down her bare arm. She slaps him away, but cannot stop the sensation from lingering on her skin; all sense of modesty forgotten for the moment, she glares at him. He has propped himself up on his arm, the sheet slipping precariously lower, and his glance moves idly down the length of her and then back up to meet her eyes. "Something wrong, Elizabeth?"

"Yes, there's something wrong!"

He frowns at her, appearing greatly perplexed. "We're not having regrets, are we? At this late hour?"

"My God..." She struggles to keep her voice from breaking. "What have we done? What have _I_ done--?"

"Nothing more than what we both wanted, love."

His hand insinuates itself under the coverlet, and slides deliberately and possessively up her thigh.

She closes her eyes, drawing an uneven breath. "Don't."

He stops, but lets the hand remain where it is, and it seems that every nerve in her body has gathered beneath it, her entire awareness concentrated in that one small area. Heat surges in her blood, and she knows that even now, in the harsh light of sober day, she still desperately wants him to continue touching her.

"Please, Jack..." She swallows, marshaling her willpower. "It was one night. It was a mistake. One I don't intend to repeat."

His fingers flex, just a little; she bites down hard on her lower lip.

"Aye...but there's no denying you enjoyed this particular little mistake, m'dear, and what's more--" he moves again, and this time she cannot keep from crying out softly-- "I daresay it's one you want to repeat. Don't you."

"You don't understand," she whispers. "That makes it all the worse. I love Will--"

"Of course you do," he murmurs. "No worries, darling. That you, like numerous other females of high intelligence and great refinement, find it impossible to resist my good looks and roguish charm has naught to do with your devotion to your husband. There is no need for dear William to ever be told of it, and you may trust that he will never think to suspect you. It changes nothing."

"No," she says, shakily. "It changes everything."

"Ah." His lips brush her ear, and she gasps as his touch becomes more insistent; he is now lying half over her. "Perhaps that is because your husband has not given you such pleasure as I have done, eh? Perhaps he does not make you tremble... _thus_..."

And in her body's response to him, she knows that he is right.

She pushes him off her violently and puts the width of the room between them, clutching the sheet around herself to preserve the last remaining shreds of her dignity.

"I was only guessing," he says in a mild tone.

"You don't have an ounce of morality in you, do you, Jack Sparrow," she says fiercely. "Will is your friend, too. Shouldn't you have some tiny qualm about cuckolding him?"

He spreads his hands. "Pirate..." he says, grinning at her. Then his expression grows abruptly serious. "Honestly, love, what's done is done. And the only rule that really matters to me is this: what one can do, and what one cannot do. I can't change what we did, Elizabeth, even if I wanted to...and neither can you. I can choose to not waste any time brooding over it."

Surprised by this bit of Sparrowish philosophy, she stares at him; and belatedly realizes that taking the linens with her was a huge miscalculation on her part.

Grabbing his breeches from the floor, she hurls them at him. "For God's sake, clothe yourself--!"

"I'm afraid I'm rather comfortable as I am, thank you. And it's not as if you're looking at anything you haven't already seen, love."

"Turn around then. I, at least, intend to make myself decent."

He sighs, turning obligingly towards the wall, but she hears his words only too clearly.

"After last night, darling, I hardly think I would choose that term to describe you."

"I hate you," she hisses in his general direction, trying to avoid catching a glimpse of his naked backside.

"Aye, and that would make it all very much more simple, would it not, love--if indeed it were the case..."


	17. Blind

**XVI.  
Blind**

_Do you remember the paths where we met?  
Long, long ago, long, long ago.  
Ah, yes, you told me you'd never forget,  
Long, long ago, long ago.  
But, by long absence your truth has been tried,  
Still to your accents I listen with pride,  
Blessed as I was when I sat by your side.  
Long, long ago, long ago._

\--"Long, Long Ago"

* * *

Elizabeth barely hears the shouts and curses that fly her way as she pushes blindly through the crowded, filthy cobblestone streets of Tortuga. Thoughts of her own safety have fled far from her mind, and she only wants to get away, as far away as possible from Jack Sparrow...away from his brutal unconcern, away from that knowing gold-capped smile, and above all away from the storm of conflicting emotions his words have called up in her aching head.

But Tortuga is, after all, an island, and she cannot escape her thoughts.

_Oh, Will..._

How will she ever face him, now?

Jack is right about one thing. Will would never suspect her of faithlessness. But she will know, she will remember, and it will haunt her, this sin compounded with dishonesty. She momentarily pictures telling him, and shies away from the image of his stunned face, his brown eyes clouded with hurt and disbelief.

No. She cannot tell him.

She finds herself suddenly thinking of their wedding night, and her throat contracts with something very like grief.

She had been so happy. Triumphant, giddy with the thrill of what felt like getting away with something risky and forbidden, hardly daring to believe that it was true. She had loved him ever since she'd knelt beside him on a fogbound ship and whispered "You're a pirate..." And now she had him, for the rest of her life; he was hers in the eyes of God and the law, and under her father's blessing.

She'd leaned out the window of their new home to drink in the night, the stars, the moonlight on the ocean; when she heard the door open behind her she turned to him with a heart so full she'd been afraid that it might burst if she spoke just then.

"What is it, darling?" His wide eyes betrayed his uncertainty, despite the joy that vibrated in his soft voice.

"Am I dreaming?"

He laughed, and she wished he'd come to her, but he remained standing where he was, shifting his weight, looking terribly young and shy. "I hope not," he said. "Though I must admit I was thinking of asking you the same question."

"Well, if this is a dream, then I refuse to wake up..."

He stepped forward hesitantly; she met him halfway, taking his hands in hers, reassuring herself that he was real enough. They'd stared at each other for a long minute. And she'd thought: _This is my place. This is where I belong._

"You are so beautiful," he whispered, before he kissed her.

Their first time had been tender, both of them a little awkward in their inexperience, but in the pleasure of discovering one another it had hardly mattered. Afterwards, he held her as they lay close, gaze locked with hers, stroking her hair away from her face with infinite gentleness.

"Will?"

"Yes...my wife."

The way he said the word sent a delighted shiver through her. "Our life. How will it be? What will we do? Tell me..."

He kissed the top of her head. "We'll do whatever we want, my love. We'll sail the world, if you wish. And we'll share everything."

"Everything?"

He pulled her nearer to him, smiling. Any hint of doubt had vanished from his face, replaced by the light of love and contentment. "Everything..."

_Not anymore_ , she thinks.

_We both have our secrets now, our other lives._

Except, up until the last few days, her only secret had been her dream-life. Will must have been cultivating his other identity for some time now, she supposes, to have whole armies of Spaniards chasing after him.

Her mind slides back to that first night together. How safe Will had made her feel, how he cherished her. Even now he looks at her with that same adoring light in his eyes, as if she is the most lovely thing he's ever seen; after three years, he still worships her. Even now, though he comes home so rarely, she still feels that same wholeness, that security, in the sanctuary of his embrace.

And Jack Sparrow...

Jack makes her feel many things. Cherished and safe are not among them.

He is dangerous, unpredictable, untrustworthy. He seems to find entertainment in infuriating her and unnerving her, and does both with disturbing ease. His presence keeps her constantly off-balance, unsettled by a volatile sensitivity that charges her skin whenever he turns her way, like the rush of adrenaline or alcohol. And in his arms last night she became reckless and wanton; he'd destroyed her carefully-maintained poise, efficiently stripped her of all restraint and reason until she found herself begging him to make that unbridled ecstasy last forever.

Will has never done that to her. Never made her lose control. He's never made her heart pound so unevenly, made her blood burn like that. And she hates Jack for knowing it, for seeing through her so effortlessly.

For being right. Again.

She takes a corner too fast and slams right into a greasy, rat-faced man headed up from the waterfront.

He snarls at her. "Watch yer step, boy--"

"Watch your own," she snaps back, turning away. And immediately regrets her quick tongue when a dirty, sinewy arm wraps itself around her neck. She feels the cold edge of steel at her throat, gagging as her assailant's fetid breath washes across her cheek.

"Pretty little lads such's yerself oughtn't to talk so big, I reckon."

She struggles, then goes immediately still when the knife digs painfully into her skin. The warm tickling sensation running down to her collarbone warns her that the weapon has cut deep enough to draw blood.

"None o' that, now." He jerks her around. "Yer comin' with me...nice an' quiet, if ye please...no yellin'."

"In broad daylight?" she hisses. "You think no one will see you?"

"Believe me, laddie," the man sneers. "Folks look to their own affairs 'ere, an' keep out o' business that ain't theirs. Ain't no 'un gonna notice or care if I slit ye ear to ear an' leave ye layin' in the mud."

"I'm afraid that's not entirely true," says a familiar female voice.

Elizabeth's captor freezes in the act of shoving her roughly back up the street, cursing viciously under his breath.

"Let the boy go," Nichole D'Bouvoire continues, in coolly conversational terms. "Because I can assure you, Georgie, that no one will trouble themselves to stop me if I elect to put a pellet of lead or two into your twisted little brain."

Elizabeth, released abruptly, stumbles forward, her hand going to the shallow cut on her throat. Nichole grabs her arm, steadying her. "You all right?"

"I think so." There isn't too much blood on her fingers when she looks down. "Thank you."

"You're a damn fool, Leslie Swann," Nichole says sharply."Young lads are no safer on these streets than young ladies." She retucks her pistol into her belt, following Georgie's rapid retreat with narrowed eyes. "If you must wander about alone, always be on your guard. There are far too many here willing to prey on the weak and stupid, and they rarely discriminate."

Elizabeth flushes. "I...I guess I wasn't thinking that I'd be in any danger at high noon, Miss D'Bouvoire."

"More like you weren't thinking at all," Nichole suggests. "And it's Captain D'Bouvoire, if you please," she adds, silkily.

"I had other things on my mind," Elizabeth protests. Then, stung by the woman's condescending tone, and irritated by the way her request brings Jack Sparrow unavoidably to mind, she demands, "Why did you help me?"

Nichole's expression becomes grim. "Even the foolish do not deserve to suffer the fate which he intended for you," she says. "And I suspect Captain Sparrow would have had my hide if he found out I'd stood by and watched you get yourself in that kind of trouble..."

Elizabeth realizes she must have let something show in her face at the sound of his name, because Captain D'Bouvoire stops short, peering intently at her.

"Just out of curiosity, where is Jack, anyway?"

"I haven't the faintest idea." Elizabeth shrugs, adopting as much unconcern as she can muster. "I left him back at the Faithful Bride."

"Interesting," Nichole murmurs. "Well, in that case, you may as well come along with me, and I'll find something with which to doctor up that cut."

"No, no," Elizabeth says hurriedly. "I'll be all right."

"After being cut by that man's blade?" The woman gives her a disgusted look. "That'll nearly guarantee you a nice case of blood poisoning. Let's go," she says imperiously, giving Elizabeth a little push toward the harbor. "I have the proper supplies in my ship, and it's just a short way down to the docks."

"You found another ship, then?" Relieved that Nichole has seen fit to drop the subject of Jack Sparrow, Elizabeth allows the female Captain to steer her toward the waterfront.

"It's not much," Nichole says shortly. "But it will suit my purposes."

"Your purposes--?"

"None of your business, Leslie." But from the way Captain D'Bouvoire's face hardens as she regards the sleek corsaire riding at the pier, Elizabeth can guess at her mission.

"You're going after him, aren't you," Elizabeth says. "The Spanish Captain who sank your last ship." She knows by the startled glance Nichole gives her that she is right. "You're going after Morena."

Nichole's smile is cold and brilliant. "Let us go sit in my cabin, shall we?"

* * *

Nichole D'Bouvoire has furnished her new quarters on the _Gyrfalcon_ as simply and cheaply as possible. A small linen-sheeted cot stands against one wall, across from a table bearing neatly arranged navigational instruments and rolled-up maps. The only other items in the room are two roughly hewn wooden stools, a carved antique chest in the corner, and a well-used wardrobe that possesses Nichole's only concession to feminine sensibilities in the form of two mirrored doors.

She likes the Spartan feel of it, and tries to avoid remembering the valuables--and the memories--that went down with her _Seahawk_ , forever lost.

She pours herself some rum, and offers the bottle courteously to Sparrow's girl, who shakes her head at it, grimacing; Nichole recorks the flask with a shrug, and straddles a stool, watching her guest set to the task of cleansing the laceration on her neck. The girl's hands only tremble a little, but Nichole notes the bruise-like circles under her eyes, and how her little frown as she faces her own reflection doesn't seem to originate from the physical pain of that cut. She would be quite pretty, Nichole reflects, if a few more pounds were added to fill out the slight figure and the fragile angles of her cheekbones. With her breasts bound as they surely are, her curves are hardly detectable.

"Tell me something," Nichole says. She meets and holds the girl's gaze in the mirror. "What is is your real name, Leslie Swann?"

'Leslie' glances back at her quickly, obviously caught off-guard by the directness of the inquiry. She hesitates, and Nichole waits patiently, sipping her drink.

"Elizabeth," the girl says finally. "My name is Elizabeth Turner... _nee_ Swann."

"Ah," Nichole says. She waits again, and when no more information seems to be forthcoming, adds, "And Jack Sparrow...? Where does he fit in?"

Elizabeth Turner, _nee_ Swann, looks away, busying herself in the process of applying plaster to the angry pink line that now mars her fair skin.

"Ah." Nichole observes the girl's nervous fingers with interest, noticing the lack of callouses, dirt, or redness.

This one's never worked for her living; if that wasn't already apparent in her cultured accent and untanned face, it is made clear by the delicate movements of those unblemished white hands.

"So, Elizabeth Turner," she says softly. "What is it you're running from?" The girl bites her lip; Nichole allows a hard edge to creep into her voice. "Have you been forced into an arranged marriage? Are you bearing an illicit child? Does your husband beat you...or did he leave you for some common strumpet?"

"No." Mrs. Turner sounds tired, desolate, and Nichole finds herself regretting her flippancy. "None of those things. Will Turner loves me...It is I who have wronged him." She has finished dressing her neck, and rises abruptly. "Thank you for your assistance, Captain D'Bouvoire," she says, stiffly polite. "I owe you my life."

Nichole considers her, the proud set of her mouth, the ramrod posture, and unexpectedly remembers another young woman set adrift in a brutal masculine world. A girl who craved, above all else, freedom.

She herself had been much younger, of course; Elizabeth is over twenty, while Nichole had been fifteen when she'd played this game. Dressed like a boy, learned to survive the hard way...She'd been young enough, smart enough, and stubborn enough to adapt.

She sees the anxious, trapped expression hidden in Elizabeth Turner's shadowed eyes, and wonders, as the other woman turns to leave, if this one will have what it takes to survive whatever heartache has brought her here. Following her out of the cabin, she watches the girl walk slowly away from the ship and wander aimlessly down the quay.

Nichole frowns, wavering for a moment. This is none of her concern, after all. The girl is old enough to make her own choices, right or wrong.

Still, when she steps off the _Gyrfalcon_ , her stride is purposeful. She suddenly feels the need to have a little chat with Captain Jack Sparrow.

* * *

Nichole catches up with Jack a few hours later, predictably, at a tavern; a particularly dirty and disreputable establishment, in fact, known as the 'Pig and Sickle.'

He appears to her practiced eye to be even more soused than usual. She slides onto the seat next to him; he continues to gaze soulfully into the bottom of his empty cup, and seems thoroughly unaware of her presence. She waves the bartender over, indicating that he should pour Jack another drink and bring her one of the same.

He relinquishes his flagon with great reluctance when the bartender tries to take it from him to refill it, slurring, "Wha' the bloody...oh..." Then he subsides, and his eyes drift haphazardly until they focus, blearily, on Nichole's face.

"Hullo, Red..."

She casts a glance to the smoke-wreathed ceiling. "Hullo, Jack."

"Cap'n Jack." He leers at her, lids at half-mast under all that kohl. "So...so...wha's a bonny lass like you doin' in a place like this--?"

"Jack..." she says, exasperated. "It's Nichole, you great buffoon."

"I knew that," he says immediately, accepting his refilled cup with unrestrained gratitude and sinking about half of it at one go.

She raises an eyebrow at him. "What are you doing?"

"Gettin' drunk." The mug slams down on the bar. "Extraordinarily, superfluously, delightfully intoxicated, that's me, darlin'. Care to join me?"

"Only you would use longer words when you're completely off your gourd."

"I fear 'tis true, me dear, 'tis true." He regards her, his expression whimsical. "I'm curious, love. Ha' you ever known me to not be...completely off my gourd...as it were?"

"Never," she agrees. "But I also haven't seen you like this in a long time, Jack."

He drapes a heavy arm about her shoulders. "Aye, but. But. You haven't seen me...period...in a long time, Nick--" He corrects himself almost smoothly... "Nichole."

"Not that long, Jack Sparrow." She disengages herself from his clumsy half-embrace, studying him critically. "Come to think of it, I _have_ seen you like this once before."

He affects disinterest, banging his cup on top of the bar again in a fruitless attempt to attract the attention of the bartender, who is studiously and unsurprisingly ignoring him. "And when was that, love?" he asks her, in an abstracted way. "Ahoy there! More rum, if you please..." He glowers at his cup. "Ruddy bastard..."

"Right after you lost the _Pearl_ ," she says softly.

The glance with which he favors her, though not entirely pleased, is utterly and unmistakeably lucid, reminding her that Jack Sparrow, even in the midst of his worst benders, is never more drunk than precisely as drunk as he chooses to be. "For pity's sake, Captain D'Bouvoire," he growls, "do get to the point. I find your prevarication unbearably tedious."

She pauses deliberately, taking a slow swallow of her rum. "Well...a discerning mind might speculate that you are perhaps worried your _Pearl_ will not return for you this time, Captain Sparrow..." She blithely catches the bartender's furtive glance, and beckons him over with an imperative gesture, watching Jack out of the corner of her eye as the cups are filled.

He drinks, apparently mulling over her words, and thumps his flagon down in order to wag a triumphant, be-ringed finger in front of her nose.

"Ah, love, then a discernin' mind would be wrong, it would! Tha's not it...not it atall..."

"I knew it."

He stares at her in confusion, the wind snatched from his proverbial sails; she allows herself a tiny half-smile.

"It's the girl, isn't it, Jack Sparrow."

"Not a girl," he says petulantly. "Lady." Then he stops; his expression becomes deeply affronted. "I mean...I mean...what girl?"

"Jack; Jack." She shakes her head. "Stop playing the fool, for once, won't you? You know perfectly well who I'm talking about." She fixes him with a stern look. "It's Elizabeth."

"Elizabeth!" He makes an agitated, helpless gesture, and seems about to contradict her, until he sees her face and abandons the effort. "Oh, blast. You've spoken with her, I take it."

"Not at length. But aye, I have."

"What about her, then."

"You bedded her, didn't you?"

"Bedded her!" Again, he contrives to appear mortally offended. "That's the wife of my dearly departed best friend's only son you're speaking of, missy. I'll have you know I don't take kindly to such intimations." Then he sighs. "But aye...aye, Nichole, you have assessed the situation correctly, I'm afraid. Carnal knowledge was had, the forbidden fruit was tasted, although I'll venture to say that no innocence was lost by either party." He looks straight at her, his eyes dark and troubled by some powerful emotion she cannot identify. "Satisfied, darling?"

"And you're ready to leave it at that, Jack?" She sips her drink, searching for the appropriate words. "She's not like the other women you dally with, you know..."

"The devil she's not..." His hands curl at the edge of the bar, frustration and tension clear in every inch of his lean frame. "You don't think I know that? Fool I may be, but I'm not that stupid, D'Bouvoire."

"I know you're not, Jack." She regards him steadily. "But I'll wager she doesn't."

"Aye." The bitterness in his tone surprises Nichole. "She bloody well hates me now, or so she'd have me believe."

"What did you say to her?"

He scowls balefully at her. "I do not appreciate the way you naturally assume that it was something I said."

"What did you do, then?"

He lifts his hands, sighing dramatically. "Nothing she didn't ask of me." He pulls at a dreadlock in a distracted fashion. "I suppose I may have said a thing or two she didn't take kindly to, when she went all saintly on me first thing this morning..."

Nichole thinks of Elizabeth, her stubbornly upright posture and her changing, vulnerable eyes, and puts that together with what she knows of Jack's ways. She shakes her head at him.

"What?"

"I found the lady in question wandering the worst section of the docks this morning." She rises. "She doesn't belong here, Jack Sparrow."

"The lady in question can, and has, looked out for herself quite well in the past," Jack says. "Took on an entire shipful of supernatural mutineers, if I do remember the story rightly, with not much more than a kitchen knife an' those big eyes of hers...I don't see why she should have any trouble with the riff-raff of Tortuga."

"Aye. But all tales aside," Nichole says grimly, "I was just in time to prevent her from being robbed...and probably worse...by a particularly nasty, and all too human, brand of scoundrel."

His eyes widen, and he swears softly under his breath, suddenly on his feet and looking for all intents and purposes, stone-cold sober--by Sparrow standards, at any rate.

"She's all right, my friend," she assures him. "No more than a scratch."

But he's pushed past her, already on his way to the door.

She stares after him thoughtfully, and then turns to pay their tab.

* * *

He finds her sitting at the end of the jetty, just as the sun is lowering into the western sea.

Elizabeth recognizes the distinctive cadence of his step behind her, but doesn't turn. He pauses behind her; she hears him let out a long breath. After a moment, his hand falls on her right shoulder, almost hesitantly. Neither speaks.

Finally she stirs, and reaches up a hand to touch his briefly. She feels his fingers tighten on her shoulder, equally briefly.

He says, "The _Pearl_ will be here any day, love. It won't be long..."

She leans her head back, letting herself relax against him; he stiffens fractionally. Then, again with that uncharacteristic hesitation, his other hand comes to rest lightly over her left collarbone.

They remain that way in silence for a long time, unmoving, until the brilliant sky has faded into darkness.


	18. Evening Star

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For anyone wondering, the star in question is Venus, and an albatross is a big, ungainly seabird, often considered bad luck by sailors and featured in Coleridge's _Rime of the Ancient Mariner_. A traverse board was a means of calculating a ship's course during a four hour watch. It was marked with a compass rose, with eight holes at each point; every half-hour, a peg would be placed at the point corresponding to the direction the ship had run. At the end of the watch, the approximate course of the ship could be determined from the distribution of the pegs.

**XVII.  
Evening Star**

 

_Tho' women's minds like winter winds,  
May shift, and turn, and all that,  
The noblest breast adores them most,  
A consequence I draw that._

\--"Tho' Women's Minds"

* * *

William Turner stands at the starboard prow of the 'Dauntless'; to his left, off the bowsprit, he can see the black shape of 'La Venganza' out of the corner of his eye, leading them southeast before a strong wind. Leading them to Hispaniola, to Elizabeth's salvation and Will's own almost certain condemnation.

Determined, he blocks the fateful vision from his mind, looking away from it to the west, watching the evening star grow gradually brighter above the darkening horizon.

He used to wonder about that star, when he was a boy, wonder why it didn't move in the same patterns as the rest of its fellows. Once, a very long time ago, he'd asked his mother about it, and Anne Turner had looked at her son with more sadness than usual in her weary, far-away blue eyes and said, "Your father would know."

He didn't ask her again. Hadn't had a chance to; that winter had brought sickness to Portsmouth, and his mother had never been strong, not since his father disappeared and the life in her had faded along with the light in her eyes. She hadn't fought the fever, just let it take her, let it hollow her cheeks and reveal her bones just under the skin, fragile as a bird's. He held her hand; she gripped his tightly, told him he should find his father and show him the gold coin he always kept under his shirt, next to his skin, where it lay cold and heavy like a promise. Told him that his father was a good man, would take him in and care for him. Was waiting for him somewhere in that mysterious Caribbean.

Later, he realized that grown-ups lied, sometimes. They thought it made things easier. And when had he forgotten that hiding the truth makes it harder to face, in the end?

A light wind brushes his face, the sea-breeze that he would normally breathe deeply for its comfort, for the scent that says "home" to him like nothing else; but tonight, though the air is warm, it carries the promise of approaching autumn, and he shivers slightly. He hasn't thought of his mother's death in a long time. And he'd forgotten about the evening star until many years later on the deck of a commandeered Naval vessel en route to Tortuga, when Jack Sparrow took it upon himself to teach Bill Turner's son the basics of navigation. Still wary of a man whose ilk (whose very crew, if only he'd known) had killed so viciously and indiscriminately on that long, long-ago night on the Atlantic, driven to a frenzy in their lust for gold, Will participated in the lesson grudgingly.

He found himself impressed despite himself at the wealth of sea-related knowledge possessed by his disreputable-looking, uneducated-sounding partner in crime. But he'd never had much schooling after being apprenticed to Mr. Brown at the smithy, and he was quickly overwhelmed by the slew of numbers and figures that Jack tossed at him over the traverse-board in a slightly disorganized and overly precipitous fashion. Jack's mind, Will now knew, was the type that worked twice as fast as that of a normal person's, and he had a habit of either skipping an unfortunate number of steps in his explanations, or going at solutions by insanely convoluted and roundabout methods that made sense only to himself.

At the time, this led inevitably to the both of them becoming violently frustrated with one another. Jack, despairing of him, contented himself with showing Will how to read his bearing under a clear night sky.

"If you're sailing under my command, young Will, you must at least be capable of knowing which direction you're sailing in..."

"As if you'd let me steer this thing anyway."

"Which I wouldn't and won't, if I can possibly help it," Jack agreed. "However. Being that you and you alone constitute the entirety of my crew--" he surveyed said "crew" with resigned distaste-- "I would prefer that I am not the only one who has any idea where the devil we are at any given moment. If I should happen to allow myself the luxury of a hour's cat-nap, I should not wish to wake and find us halfway to Panama."

He then briskly outlined the various constellations' positions, pointed out the Pole Star, looked inexpressibly shocked when Will asserted that he knew how to find the Star in question, and gave him a five-minute crash course on how to use a quadrant.

"What about that star?" Will asked, pointing at the jewel-like beacon burning in the west.

"That star?" Jack guffawed. "'Fraid there's no dependin' on that star, mate. The ancients named her for one of their heathen goddesses, and not for nothing, either...she's as inconstant as any other woman, that one. She's not even a true star, or so they say..."

"Surely not all females are so fickle," Will protested.

Jack quirked a skeptical eyebrow at him. "Aye, and you have in mind your lovely Miss Elizabeth, I'll wager. Well, then, I won't be the one to crush your oh-so-romantic illusions."

"You know nothing of Elizabeth Swann," Will said hotly. He had in fact been thinking of her, and had been inclined to wax poetic in his comparison of her beauty to that of the brilliant star, before Jack proclaimed that heavenly body false.

Jack shook his head slowly. "Perhaps not. But I know women, mate, and I know the games they play at. Take my word for it. The prettiest and most well-spoken females are the most treacherous of the lot."

But in spite of Jack's cynicism, Will thinks of Elizabeth every time that clear, shining light appears in the wake of sunset. And even tonight, when the sound of her name in his mind is fraught with worry, fear, and guilt, it brings him back momentarily to the sense of wholeness that he loses every time he leaves her.

He realizes suddenly that he's never told her that.

There are so many things he hasn't told her.

He rouses himself from his reverie. There is something he must do.

* * *

Commodore Norrington is about to sit down to his evening meal when someone knocks on his cabin door.

"Enter," he calls out, resigned. He hoped to take his supper in peace tonight, to use the time to mull over this extremely unorthodox situation he has found himself embroiled in, as well as to sort out his unruly thoughts.

He was hoping he'd left behind his tender feelings for the Governor's daughter, as any proper gentleman would, at her wedding to William Turner. If in there were indeed any remaining vestiges of attachment for her still in his heart, they should have vanished on his own wedding day. His Violet is everything he'd hoped for in a wife, is more than he'd hoped; and indeed she is very dear to him. But while a seemly concern for Elizabeth Turner's well-being is still not at all inappropriate, a brief examination of his own actions, words and state of mind during the interview with Captain Francisco Morena-- _that devil_ \--cannot ignore the fact that he did not act merely in accordance with the call of duty.

The door cracks open, and Norrington looks up, expecting to see one of his men come to report some small problem. _Why must they always run to me with this nonsense--?_ he reflects irritably. _Can't even decide to caulk the boats without me...not a single spark of initiative among them._

But the dark-haired head that pokes itself around the doorjamb is not that of an anxious Navy officer. Norrington sighs again, discovering that of all the men on the _Dauntless_ , the one with whom he least of all wishes to deal right now is Will Turner.

"My apologies for disturbing you, sir." Will hovers awkwardly on the threshold.

"Yes, yes, it's quite all right." Norrington waves him forward impatiently. "Have some wine, if you like."

Will doesn't sit. "Actually, I was only going to ask if I might borrow pen, ink, and paper."

"Ah." He pulls open a drawer of his writing desk and hands Turner the requested items, and adds, because he feels he should, "How are you holding up, man?"

Will seems surprised at the question for a split second; then he laughs, a sharp, humorless sound. "Given the circumstances, Commodore? As well as can be expected, I suppose."

"It is certainly a most difficult and...regrettable situation, Master Turner."

"Difficult doesn't even begin to describe it," Turner says shortly. Laying the writing materials on the table, he picks up the previously offered wine bottle and pours himself a glass; wipes a hand across his face as if trying to erase some of the fatigue and strain marking his features. He appears to have aged years in a single day.

There is a little silence; Turner swallows a gulp of wine, seemingly without tasting it. When he speaks again, his words are indistinct, almost inaudible.

"It's nearly impossible to grasp. I find I almost don't believe it. That this is truly happening. Has happened." He lifts his head, and looks straight at Norrington, his eyes dull, blank. "It's only just occurred to me this evening, Commodore, that I will probably never see my wife again. Never speak to her again. Never..."

His voice fails, and he turns away, shoulders shaking not quite imperceptibly.

Searching unsuccessfully for a response that could be judged anything but thoroughly inadequate in the face of such emotion, Norrington watches Turner pace the room and pause to gaze fixedly out the stern windows, though it's fully apparent the other man sees nothing of the dark, empty ocean beyond the thick glass.

"I have it in mind to write Mrs. Turner a letter this night," Will says tonelessly after a moment, control regained. "I was hoping that you would be so kind as to deliver it to her. When the time comes."

The Commodore nods, clears his throat. "Of course. It would be no trouble..."

Turner, his expression carefully impassive, gathers up paper, quill, and ink-bottle. "Thank you, sir." He drains the rest of his wine in one swallow--Norrington frowns, thinking that he wouldn't have pegged the lad for much of a tippler--and turns to leave. Then he halts in the doorway.

"Commodore Norrington," he says softly. "I know you and I haven't always been on the best of terms, but I know you've cared for Elizabeth as long as I have." He meets Norrington's questioning glance. "You'll...look after her for me, won't you?"

Norrington reads the stark desperation in Will's eyes, experiencing a deep pang of sympathy for the younger man's struggle to come to terms with the knowledge that he's about to lose everything. Including, in all likelihood, his life.

"For that, Will Turner," he says, hoping the other can hear the weight of sincerity in his words, "you may certainly depend on me."

Will seems about to speak; but instead, he bows his head in a brief nod and is gone, closing the door behind him. In his wake, the Commodore pours himself a glass of wine, sipping it absently. Not for the first time, he finds himself thinking that if Elizabeth Turner, nee Swann, had the good sense to remain safely in Port Royal in the first place, this never would have happened. He wonders, also not for the first time, where she acquired such views as she expressed in her missive to his father, of which, as it was read to him repeatedly and emotionally by that honorable gentleman, he has every phrase committed to memory.

_A prisoner in her own life, indeed._

He prays that the lady has finally learned the difference between the true meaning of imprisonment and that of her proper station, the safe confines of the home where she belongs. Unfortunately, it will be too late by then. Her foolish quest for "freedom"-- whatever that means to her quaint little feminine brain--will have already cost her husband his life.

The only true freedom is the liberty to execute one's duty, he thinks severely. _The King serves his duty to God, we gentlemen owe our duty to the King, and women...why, their duty is to their households, husbands and family._ It occurs to him that he shouldn't be surprised if Mrs. Turner picked up her ridiculous ideas during the fiasco of her kidnapping and forced sojourn aboard the 'Black Pearl.' She had seemed to emerge from the adventure remarkably unscathed, but there has to be a reason for her current and highly lamentable lapse in judgment.

He scowls into his wineglass. In fact, he shouldn't be surprised at all if those ill-conceived notions were planted in her pretty, impetuous head by none other than the single most unwashed, unbalanced, and utterly unprincipled scoundrel of the lot...none other, in fact, than the intolerable Captain Jack Sparrow.

He finishes off the glass, with the uneasy inkling that he has been somewhat negligent in fulfilling his duty to his King. He should have taken care of that blasted Sparrow problem on the first go-round. One day's head start might have been sporting, but it was hardly wise.

* * *

That "blasted Sparrow problem" is currently sunk deep in contemplation of the twilight horizon and the single clear, bright star that gleams steadily there in the wake of the vanished sun. His mind, aided and abetted in its wanderings by a fairly strong dose of alcohol--which has, nonetheless, begun to fade rapidly and regrettably from his blood--roams freely in the past, to the memory of a young man besotted with that shining beacon and what it stood for.

_Sorry, lad. I fear I was right, after all. As per usual..._

Which brings him to the uneasy discovery that he does not feel extraordinarily good about his astuteness in this case. In fact, he feels unusually not good about it.

Can't really help it that he's right ninety-nine times out of ten, though.

_Y'know, there are some things a man just can't help._

Slim shoulders stir beneath his hands.

"I didn't quite catch that, I'm afraid."

Bollocks. He must've said that last part out loud, by accident, the sound of his voice breaking the fragile peace that had fallen between them.

"Apologies, love. Was talking to somebody else."

Elizabeth slips adroitly out from their loose almost-embrace, and turns to look at him suspiciously. Wears that expression far too well, she does.

"I'm the only one here, Jack."

"So you are," he agrees, genially.

"Then who--?"

He places one foot up on the log of driftwood she's sitting on, leaning an elbow on his knee, deliberately nonchalant. "Not that it's any of your business. Bit of a private conversation, savvy? But if you must know, I was mostly speakin' to that dazzling great bauble hanging over yonder." He waves vaguely at the western skyline.

"The evening star?" A graceful eyebrow arches upward. "And I suppose you two are old cronies."

"Aye, you could put it that way," he says, amused.

"You're daft, Jack."

He grins at her. "It's been rumored." Then he frowns, noticing something; catching her chin firmly, he lifts it a little to examine the shallow cut across her throat. "What's this, love?"

Straining to extricate herself, she raises a hand to hide the wound. "It's nothing. A scratch. Let go."

Instead, he tightens his grip for a second; she glares up at him--another expression she's all too practiced at--and he feels the slight tremor along her jaw, the warmth gathering in her cheeks as he searches her guarded eyes. When he releases her abruptly, she jerks away from him, hand still at her throat.

He makes a noise of exasperation. "Honestly, m'lady, I promise I am not attempting to seduce you just at present, so all your righteous indignation is most uncalled for." After perfunctory consideration, he cannot resist, and adds, "I daresay you'd know it if I was to try anything of that sort, really..."

She has dropped her head to stare at the sandy ground, exposing the nape of her neck, and without thinking he allows his fingers to stray fleetingly across the bare skin there. A visible shudder runs through her body, and she leaps up from her seat, the gentle sound of the small waves lapping against the rocks obscuring her low exclamation. About to ask her, against his better judgement, to repeat herself, he abandons the question; he's seen the suggestion of something like pain pass over her face, obvious even in the dim light. She sways on her feet, but quickly recovers herself, shaking off his supporting arm.

He grasps her by the wrists. "Do us both a favor, Elizabeth, darling. I know it's difficult for you...but please, endeavor to restrain yourself from your customary foolishness for one brief instant." She looks away, and he tilts his head until she meets his gaze. "Now, kindly tell me what ails you, aside from the fact that you've apparently managed to get your throat very close to slit."

"Nothing ails me," she says, on a shallow breath, but she ceases struggling.

Regarding her skeptically, he notes the fatigue dulling her features, and finds he's not sure her sudden, uncharacteristic compliance represents a good sign. He waits, letting the silence stretch.

"I rose too quickly," she mutters finally. "I felt lightheaded for a moment, but it's passed now." She sighs. "I haven't eaten at all today, Jack. Is that what you wished to know?"

"It'll do," he says, relaxing his hold on her. "Perhaps we should remedy that oversight, however..." He extends a courteous arm for her to take. "I happen to know a lovely establishment right here in Tortuga, m'lady, wherein is served the most delicious slow-roasted pork you'll ever taste. You really must try it while you're here. I assure you it would be a great loss not to."

She looks at the proffered arm, then back at him, and he observes the mischievous glint in her eye with some relief.

"You appear to have forgotten that I'm no lady, Jack," she says lightly. "Although I imagine you'd make quite a stir as the gentleman escort of a comely young lad such as myself."

He chuckles, lowering his hand. "In Tortuga, love? No one would bat an eyelash. They're used to anything and everything, round here." He watches her closely as he speaks, trying to gauge her mood, but night is falling quickly and he can see nothing in her eyes but shadows. He says, "Shall we?"

She draws a deep breath. "I suppose so." And then, with a resolute little nod, she says, "Lead on, Captain Sparrow."

"Right, then," he murmurs. "Good girl. Come on."

Elizabeth lapses back into silence as they walk together up the quay and down the street towards the pub Jack has in mind, a small but thriving institution known whimsically as the Albatross Nest. In an effort to combat her reticence, as well as a means of diverting himself, he cheerfully points out to her various items of interest along the way, relating associated tales of his previous adventures in Tortuga. But despite increasingly fantastic embellishments on his part--some added just in the hope that she'll at least be moved to argue with him--she acknowledges each of his favorite landmarks with barely a turn of her head, her murmured responses remaining short and abstracted.

Blasted women and their moods, he thinks. The wind itself has never been so bloody changeable. And he's never known a woman--not even the indomitable and inescapably sharp-tongued Anamaria Vargas--to ever behave so unpredictably, to run so damnably hot and cold...nor one who shies so warily from his touch like some delicate wild creature.

Of course, it has been quite a while since he spent such a long period of time in close proximity to any female other than Anamaria; and he less views Ana in terms of her femininity, these days, than as his quartermaster, his first mate, and one of the most reliable and skilled members of his crew. It occurs to him that the last girl--before Elizabeth Turner--with whom he kept company for more than the mere space of an evening was none other than...Elizabeth Swann. And before her, long before, it had been Nichole D'Bouvoire.

Nichole...now she's an unusual one as well, unusual enough to pique and hold his interest beyond their first night. Fierce and mercurial as any, she is; but easy enough to understand and anticipate, for all that. He'd quickly learned the rules of engagement. Cross her, and one'd be wise to have a weapon on hand to parry her attack; truly injure her pride, her interests, or anyone she claimed loyalty to, and she'd probably kill the offending party. Thoroughly.

But Nichole has never been ambivalent about anything, for as long as he's known her. And Nichole has never feared passion, if indeed she fears anything...except, perhaps, like himself, the loss of freedom. Elizabeth, it seems, despite her attempt to escape the restrictions of her appointed station, is still afraid to break free. Afraid to break the rules, afraid of her own desires, and, he has begun to suspect, afraid of him--and not, he recognizes wryly, for the usual reasons. She has never feared him because he is a pirate, a scoundrel, or a notorious criminal with no respect for God or country; she fears him now for what he represents to her.

He looks sideways at her, realizing that her preoccupation has somehow rubbed off on him, and that in her presence he has begun to engage in far more serious reflection than he's accustomed to. He can't say he likes it much.

It's rather uncomfortable. Makes his head hurt. He rather thinks it's time for more rum.

He opens his mouth to assert this opinion, but she startles him quiet by speaking first.

"I'm sorry, Jack."

Her eyes are still fixed on the ground. He stares at her. Elizabeth Turner...perhaps the only person on land or sea with the ability to render him anything like speechless. "I beg your pardon?" he says at last. "You're sorry for...what, exactly, lass?"

They have both stopped walking, still a few yards, lamentably, from the door that leads to slow-roasted pork. She hesitates, arms folded across her bound chest, gazing past him down the dirty street as if she might discover the right words lying somewhere in the evil-smelling gutter.

"For blaming you." She glances up at him quickly. "My weakness is not your fault, nor is my sin. It was I who--who acted rashly." Her voice is low, and he has to lean towards her to make it out. "I'm sorry for that...for," she averts her gaze, faltering, "for kissing you. For being here..."

"Good God, woman." He raises an impulsive hand to touch her cheek, thinks better of it, wavers a bit helplessly. He has no idea how to respond to this sort of thing. Most women don't bother apologizing to him; they generally slap him hard across the face and have done with it. Now, looking down at the slender, hunched shoulders of the girl in front of him, he decides he vastly prefers the latter behavior. "Elizabeth," he says, and stops. All the words in the world, even couched in the most persuasive tones that he can muster, will not convince her to feel that what they have done is any less wrong.

He's having enough trouble convincing himself.

"Listen to me, love," he says finally. "There's no need to be sorry on my account. I can carry the weight of sin, as you put it, better than you...much more practiced at it, y'know." This last, he fancies, almost makes her smile. "I did what I did, lass, and though I can't say as I regret it as perhaps I should, I'll take my share of responsibility for what happened, same as you." At that, she meets his eyes, her expression startled, and he rushes on. _Where angels fear to tread..._ "As for your being here, honestly, I find I'm not sorry about that, not in the slightest. You did drag my bleeding body up off the floor and patch me up, which was terribly nice of you, by the way. Put a lot of effort into saving me worthless old life, too, though I'm still not entirely sure why."

"Well, I couldn't exactly leave you to die, Jack." She laughs shortly. "After all, you were the only person in Tortuga I could trust, even halfway."

"I wouldn't have died, darling. I am Captain Jack Sparrow." Then he lays a hand over his heart dramatically. "You wound me, m'lady...only halfway? I think I've earned at least three-quarters of your trust, surely."

Her answer to his joking question is grave. "Occasionally, a bit more than halfway. Maybe."

"Come now...have I ever given you reason not to trust me?"

The sight of her abruptly frozen countenance causes him to wince involuntarily.

"What?"

She doesn't answer.

"Blast." He fidgets, and then says rapidly, "Look, I admit that my behavior this morning could not, by any definition, be called gentlemanly. In my defense, I cannot remember any lass ever appearing quite so horrified to wake up beside me..."

She skewers him with a level glance.

"Bugger. You mean to make me say the words, don't you."

"Yes."

He sketches a desperate, aborted gesture in the air, looks to the sky for inspiration, looks back at her, observes the obstinate set of her mouth, and promptly abandons all hope of maintaining any shred of his much-subjugated pride.

She waits.

"I am sorry, love," he says softly, after a moment.

"Are you?"

He sighs. "Yes, madam, I am. I am sorry. I am a bad, rude man--even for a pirate. I concur, I grovel, I beg for your forgiveness, and I shall refrain from asking you what, in all honesty, you expected from an irredeemable rogue like myself. Now, can we eat?"

"Please." She smiles sweetly at him. "You can finish groveling later."

"It was a figure of speech," he growls, and stalks away toward the Albatross Nest. He can't be sure he's not imagining it, but the rhythm of her steps behind him sound faintly triumphant.

Bloody women.

"Y'know what your problem is, missy?" he demands, when she catches up to him at the door.

"Why don't you tell me, Jack?" she replies, in that same treacherously sweet tone.

He scrutinizes her for some sign of mockery, but she only widens her eyes at him innocently.

Wench. He's perfected that little trick over the years, and now she's stealing it. He must admit that she utilizes it fairly effectively.

"You," he says, somewhat unsettled and struggling to retain his train of thought, "you, m'dear, haven't the faintest idea what it is that you want."

"Oh, I don't, do I." She is forced to hurry after him as he swaggers into the tavern.

"Not an inkling," he informs her over his shoulder.

"And I suppose you do?"

"I've probably got a better handle on it than you do, I imagine. And I'd tell you--" he rounds on her suddenly-- "except it wouldn't matter, not one whit. By reason of the fact that even when you do know what you want, you're afraid to pursue it."

She opens her mouth, closes it again, bites her lip with a small frown.

Good. He's hit home. He jabs a finger at her, his face a few centimeters from hers. "That is why, no matter where you run off to, no matter how many pirates you bed, and no matter how many ridiculous penances you impose on yourself for the injuries you feel you've done your darling William in your adventures, you will never be happy. Because you have no idea what will make you so."

Despite his intentional invasion of her personal space, she stands her ground. Jack, temporarily out of steam, is reduced to scowling blackly at her; to his surprise, she does not meet his glare in kind, doesn't even seem hurt. Instead she considers him, her forehead creased rather quizzically, as if seeing him for the first time. "And what," she says slowly, "makes you happy, Jack Sparrow...if I may ask?"

Nonplussed, he draws back a little. "Me, love?"

"Yes, Jack. You."

"The _Pearl_ ," he says instantly. "Standin' at her helm with a good wind behind us, a high sea afore her keel, and the promise of plunder just over our horizon. Or," he adds, dropping casually onto the bench of the nearest empty table, "failing that, an unflagging supply of rum, some quality pork, and a comely wench on me knee." With that, he wraps an arm around her waist and pulls her onto his lap.

"You forget yourself, Captain," she hisses, straining against his unyielding grip.

He enjoys the sensation of her fruitless struggles briefly, before releasing her. She moves away, and he assumes she is about to turn and leave, but then she slides into the seat across from him, tight-lipped.

"Whatever happened to not calling attention to ourselves, I wonder?" she inquires archly. "Everyone's watching us, Jack...and I daresay they're all thinking the same thing." She's smiling that dangerous smile again. "And you were so concerned that the good people of Tortuga would take you for a boy-lover, last night."

He grins right back at her, fully unrepentant. "Darling...I'm Captain Jack Sparrow. Do you really suppose I give two damns what this riff-raff believes I get up to on my shore leave?"

"Don't you?"

He shrugs. "Not particularly."

The serving-girl arrives with cups and at his grateful wave, proceeds to fill them.

"You see, lass," he tells Elizabeth, as the barmaid departs to fill their orders for Albatross pork, "let me explain something very important to you."

She rolls her eyes, and adopts an expression of resigned patience. "And what might that be, Jack?"

He leans forward across the table, ignoring her obvious attempt to humor him.

"No publicity," he says solemnly, "is bad publicity."

* * *

Nichole turns her head, watching the lights of Tortuga slide sternward of the _Gyrfalcon_ as she steers the light vessel toward the mouth of the harbor. The town appears almost impressive from this distance, in the dark, though she knows she will not escape the stench until she clears the bay; even then the memory of it will linger in her nostrils, in her hair, until she has the opportunity to take a long swim in clean water.

That may not happen for awhile, but she cares little. Her fingers unconsciously caress the hilt of her cutlass; her mind has wandered to what lies ahead.

_Revenge._

Her lips curve in pleasure at the thought, as well as at the knowledge of the diverse collection of supplies and equipment below in the cargo hold.

Nichole has never been one to rely upon Providence to arrange matters for her, nor upon any greater wisdom to even things out, to make the world a fair place. She does not believe in the power of prayer, of sacrifice, of karma, of voodoo, or any other magic she's met and scoffed at in her extensive travels. But she knows she and Captain Francisco Morena are fated to meet again in the very near future. Only this time, she will be prepared.

It is fated, because she has decided it will be.

Because Nichole D'Bouvoire makes her own destiny.


	19. The Return Of The Black Pearl

* * *

**XVIII.  
The Return of the _Black Pearl_**

_I met her in the morning;  
Won't you go my way?  
In the morning bright and early;  
Won't you go my way?_

\--"Won't You Go My Way"

* * *

"I ain't tellin' him, and neither should you, Joshamee Gibbs," Anamaria says, with a finality that brooks no argument.

Though haunted by grave misgivings, Gibbs ploughs on, gathering his courage in the face of mortal peril. "I was only thinkin'...the Captain's awful fond of the lad, Miss Ana, on account of old Bootstrap and all, and Miss Elizabeth, too. He might like to know what's gone on while he was away."

Her scowl deepens alarmingly. "And that's exactly why he shouldn't be told. The last thing I want to do just now is go sailin' smack into the middle of another nest of law and order, Gibbs. And you know as well as I that's just what we'll be doin' if Captain Sparrow finds out what young Turner's up and done, that bloody great fool." It's uncertain whether this last epithet refers to Turner or to the Captain; Gibbs decides she likely means both.

He shifts from one foot to the other, uneasily. "Think of poor Miss Elizabeth, now. I remember her when she was but a wee lass...she's doted on Will Turner since the moment she saw him. Dunno how she'll take losin' him. Such a high-spirited lady, too, be a shame to see that spirit broken..."

"Bit fond of those two yourself, ain't you?" She shakes her head. "You and the Captain make a fine pair. Sorry excuses for pirates, the both of you. Tell him what you will, then. Just don't go blamin' our bad luck on me when half the Armada comes after us to send us all to Davy Jones."

She strides away, fetching up for a moment to scold two idle young tars, who hasten to sort out a snarled bit of rigging. Gibbs glances leeward at the small dark blot against the early morning sky. They're but a few turns of the glass out from good old Tortuga. He takes a fortifying swallow from the flask in his hand.

The good Lord must've had womenfolk like Ana in mind when He invented liquor.

He does hope Miss Elizabeth is all right, though. He didn't see much of that villain Morena, but 'twas quite enough to figure the man for a snake of the worst breed. Enough to make a man's skin crawl, the things the Spaniard said about the lass. As for the poor Turner boy...always has been the noble type, risking his own hide for the sake of his ladylove. You had to admire him for it, really. And if you'd seen the lad's face when he heard Missus Turner was in danger, you couldn't help but feel for him, either.

Having a bit of sympathy for a man in trouble like that doesn't mean he's going soft, even though he knows that's what old Ana thinks, from the look she gave him.

He gulps down another swig of rum.

* * *

Elizabeth hasn't slept well. Again.

She's spent most of the night arguing with Jack Sparrow.

She's taken another room, as she'd intended to do the previous evening, before...things happened. But Jack's accusatory words have stayed with her, though he himself is safely distant at the other end of the hall. And every so often throughout the night she finds herself rolling over, half-dreaming, to snap out a reply to the lazy, supercilious drawl that she cannot push out of her mind:

_You have no idea what makes you happy..._

"Will," she whispers. "Will made me happy."

_You need to decide just what it is that you want._

She turns again. The sheets are irredeemably twisted by now, and it's stifling in the cramped chamber. She wonders why she hasn't noticed just how close and rank these bloody rooms were, before, when she was one of two people sharing the tight quarters.

"There are some things I ought not to want in the first place."

_Only two rules matter, love. What one can do, and what one can't._

"If only it were that simple..."

But it _had_ felt that simple a scant twenty-four hours ago, when she was in his arms. So easy to forget "should" and "shouldn't", "right" and "wrong", "do" or "don't." So easy to give in, to let the storm of their desire sweep over her and through her and remind her that she was alive.

He made her lose control, and it felt like freedom. Like getting away with breaking every rule she's ever been taught to obey, like taking everything she's ever been forbidden. And she'd wanted that almost more than she wanted him. Almost.

An unbidden image invades her mind: his face just above hers, unfathomable eyes deep enough to drown in, his lips a little parted. His hands at her hips, his naked, lean-muscled body tense and gleaming with sweat. Waiting.

She had moved upwards against him, said, "Please."

"Damn you, Jack," she mutters. "Why can't you just leave me alone."

But she knows that it is her own mind that will not let her rest, her own traitorous body wishing that she were not alone this night. Aching to feel him all over again. And more than that, to conquer him as he has her, even out the score a bit, discover just where and how to touch him so that he begs for her as he made her beg for him. For one frightening instant, she imagines it, creeping down the hall in the early morning darkness, waking him with a finger over his lips to silence him...

_Like some common whore._

She cuts herself off violently, and struggles to erase the fantasy from her consciousness. Flings the coverlet off and sits up, cursing under her quickened breath. This can't go on. She has to get away. Suddenly she remembers Nichole D'Bouvoire, and a hazy idea forms itself from the chaos of her thoughts...Nichole, who thinks what she likes, does what she likes, and goes where she likes, who is probably departing Tortuga this very day.

She hurriedly pulls on her trousers. Perhaps if she makes it down to the docks before the tide turns, she'll catch Captain D'Bouvoire preparing to weigh anchor. Perhaps she can plead with the woman to take her on, volunteer to help crew the _Gyrfalcon_ , just sail away from Tortuga, from Jack, from anyone who knows her as Elizabeth Swann. Leave everything behind. Start a new life, at least for awhile. Perhaps find her way back to Port Royale when Will is due back home.

Or perhaps she will not go back. She does have a choice, after all.

She picks up the binding cloth she's been using to hide her figure, stares at it. Then she drops it to the floor without a second glance.

Her battered cap follows it a few moments later.

* * *

She stops short at the top of the quay, choking back a cry of disappointment.

The space at the pier occupied yesterday by the _Gyrfalcon_ is already empty.

She closes her eyes. For the small space of time it had taken to walk down to the wharf from the Faithful Bride, through the quiet streets--amazingly deserted save the numerous vagrants curled in corners and doorways, sleeping off the previous evening's debauchery--she has been happy. The air, if anything, smells worse than ever, but she didn't notice until now; she was too busy savoring the anticipatory taste of freedom...

Opening her eyes again, she gazes out at the sunrise-pale, sharp-edged horizon, and then stiffens. There's something out there, a small black speck topped by a cloud-white smudge; as she stands unmoving at the pier, ignoring the bustle of the fishers and longshoremen around her on the awakening docks, the speck grows gradually and becomes a ship, still far off but on fast approach to the harbor.

She has a premonition as to what ship it is, but she watches it until she's sure, until she sees the figurehead and the distinctive shape of the hull.

"Beautiful, i'n she?"

The soft voice behind her startles her, familiar and yet not, no mockery, no lechery, no pretence; she turns, and sees something in Jack's face she's never seen before. A small, private smile tugs at his mouth, and an extraordinary expression of reverence, of love, fills the dark eyes, now fixed intently on the _Black Pearl_.

"You followed me?" she demands.

"No." His answer is abstracted, focus still distant. "Didn't know you were out here 'til I came upon you, love."

She looks out at the _Pearl_ , then back at him; he's almost posed, feet a bit spread, arms crossed over his chest, tangled locks stirred by the morning breeze. With his cutlass lashed to his belt and his precious hat atilt on his head, he appears every inch the proud, wild buccaneer of the Jack Sparrow Legend.

"Jack. You couldn't possibly have known..." She peers at him. "How did you know?"

He trains that Sphinx-like, golden smile on her. "Sometimes, lass," he says, as if initiating her into some great mystery, "a man just gets a feelin' about certain things. Savvy?"

She shakes her head, and gives up, unable to repress an answering smile.

"So, m'lady." He favors her with a lingering once-over, and she knows he's noticing the differences in her appearance: her bare head, the dagger in plain sight at her side, and the one daring top button at the collar of her blouse that, because it chafed the still-painful cut on her neck, she's left unfastened. "Have you sussed out what it is you want?"

"What I want--?" Her thoughts slide unavoidably back to its early-morning wanderings, and she feels a slow flush creeping upwards from her throat. And how does he always manage to do that to her?

"Aye. We can sail you home to Port Royal, if you like. Or..." He slips an arm around her waist, gestures widely. "You could stay on with us. See the world...and me and Anamaria'll make you into the handsomest little pirate lass ever to terrorize the seven seas. What say you to that, m'dear?" He cocks his head sideways at her, considering. "'Course, old Gibbs will need some time to adjust to having another female aboard, but he'll warm up to you soon enough, I'm sure. He always liked you, y'know."

His words echo in her mind, blending with her memories.

She hears an earnest, joyful tenor murmur:

_We'll do whatever we want, my love. We'll sail the world, if you wish. And we'll share everything..._

And then, overlaying it, Jack's own rum-drenched slur in her ear from that long night years ago, when they had lain close together on the white beach of a small, uncharted island, and watched sparks from the heart of their fire fly upward to disappear among the stars.

_Wherever we want to go, we'll go...the entire ocean, the entire wo'ld...that's what a ship is, you know._

_Freedom._

"Well, darling? What shall it be?"

She bows her head, letting the memories fade out of her heart and leave it empty.

"I should return to Port Royal, though I dread the thought of it."

He snorts. "Then don't do it. It's that simple."

_Of course. It's always that simple for you, Jack Sparrow._

"I fear I'd be not but a burden to you and your crew on the high seas, Jack," she says lightly.

"What was that you were tellin' me last night, then, about how you lashed a mizzen-sail in the middle of a hurricane, all by your onesies?"

She gives a small laugh. "Perhaps I neglected to add the part where said jib came loose in the night and was torn to rags."

He waves this away. "Details, love," he replies easily. "Everyone makes mistakes."

"You're truly serious about this, aren't you," she says, surprised.

"And you are not?" He raises an eyebrow. "You speak as if I habitually make offers upon which I have no intention of following through."

At this statement, she can't help but laugh outright; he contrives to look hurt.

"What?" he says, then shakes an admonishing finger at her. "Mock me all you like, Madam, but I'm no fool. You're avoiding the question."

She sighs, and leans her head, briefly, on his shoulder.

"That's because I still don't know the answer, Jack."

* * *

Anamaria meets him at the bottom of the _Pearl'_ s gangway, grinning crookedly.

"Reckon you thought we'd let you fall behind this time, did you?"

"That's Captain to you, swabbie," he says, in mock remonstrance, and sweeps her into a quick embrace. "Won't deny it, though, I was feelin' a bit land-weary." Releasing her with a comradely slap on the back, he adds, "So, what took you so long? Not taking too many gross liberties with my darling _Pearl_ , here, I hope..."

Her smile vanishes, replaced by a curious, closed expression. "Ran into a bit of trouble that I wasn't expectin', is all." Her gaze slides past him, and she says, before he can ask her to elaborate, "You found yourself a new friend while you were waitin', I see..."

Jack glances over his shoulder at the tall, slender girl hanging back at the end of the dock. Elizabeth's head is bent, so that he cannot see her face, and crowned by smooth braids that gleam like burnished gold in the early morning sun; she's apparently lost in thought, her hands twisting together nervously. He notices how the gesture makes her seem suddenly very young, and very vulnerable, and wonders, absently, what made her drop her lad's guise today. At the same time he's aware that Anamaria's comment was meant to distract him, and that there's obviously something his first mate wants to avoid telling him.

Ana is watching him, arms folded, eyes narrowed. "Please tell me you don't mean to take her on board, Captain," she says, low. "You know it'll only lead to no good, and we don't need any new problems, just now..."

"Give me a bit more credit, love. 'S not what you think."

_Mostly not, that is._

He raises his voice. "Surely you remember Miss Elizabeth Swann, don't you, Ana? Lass who helped me win the _Pearl_ back, some years ago? Had a hand in saving me from the noose, too, if I rightly recall..."

His words, as intended, provoke reactions from both women. Elizabeth's head jerks up at the sound of her name; Ana, meanwhile, gapes at her, and then at Jack, in undisguised shock and confusion. He beams at both of them. Nothing he does surprises Ana much, these days, and he feels immensely pleased with himself for getting such a rise out of her.

But it quickly dawns on him that his quartermaster is more than just astonished; indeed, she appears uncharacteristically distressed.

"How--" For once, Ana seems at a loss for words. "Bloody crazy, what this is," she mutters, and stalks past Jack to confront Elizabeth.

He follows her. "It's quite the interesting story, really--"

But Ana cuts him off. "What are ye doin' here, lass?" she demands of Elizabeth. "Ye escaped Morena?"

Jack blinks. "What are you on about, Ana? Honestly, sometimes I think you're as daft as I--"

"You be quiet," she snaps, with such force that he deems it safer to comply, despite her shameful disrespect for his title and his authority. Ana's never quite learned the meaning of "insubordination," or if she has, she's never quite understood that it's an undesirable behavior for a ship's officer to engage in. Or perhaps, and on a moment's reflection, most likely, she just doesn't give a damn.

"Morena?" Elizabeth is saying, in bewildered tones. "I'm afraid I don't understand what--"

"I heard you were captured, girl! By the Spanish...And that man of yours, he--"

"Captured?" Elizabeth says blankly. "No! I've been here, in Tortuga, I--" She stops. "That man of-- _Will_? What happened to Will, Ana? Tell me--"

Ana stands back from her, grim. "Will Turner's on his way to Hispaniola in the firm belief that he'll be exchangin' his freedom for yours."

"What? But...how? Why?" Elizabeth falters, turns toward him, questioning. "Jack--I don't understand."

"I can't say I do either, love." He looks at her, and finds himself shaken by the stark fear and helplessness written plainly on her delicate features. "Look here, Ana," he says urgently. "You'd best tell this tale from the beginning."

In a few terse sentences, then, Ana outlines their escape from the Spanish in Tortuga harbor three nights ago, and the _Black Pearl'_ s meeting with the _Dauntless_. "I wasn't there at the time, y'know. Gibbs'll tell you the whole story of what happened aboard that Redcoat ship," she concludes. "He says the Spanish Captain--Morena--brought 'em to believe you were aboard the _Lady Swann_ when she were taken, Mistress Liz."

"Of course," Elizabeth whispers. "Will didn't know--couldn't have known--" She bites her lip. "But why--?"

"Seems Morena wouldn't accept nought in ransom for you nor for the rest of the crew, save Mr. Turner himself. Got some grudge against the lad, don't rightly know why." Ana shakes her head. "They'll be on the way to the Spanish garrison at Puerto de la Libertad to make the exchange, now. I'm real sorry, lass."

"But he's still alive," Elizabeth cries. "There's still a chance--!" She lays a hand on Jack's arm, beseechingly. "We can save him, Jack! If we sail now--"

"I don't know, love," he says slowly. "It's likely we won't catch up to them much before they reach Port Liberty, and I can't say I fancy the odds we'll face, considering the fact that half the Hispaniola fleet makes berth in that particular harbor."

"We'll think of something. You'll think of something," she implores him. "Come on, when have odds ever fazed you? You're Captain Jack Sparrow, remember?" Her grip tightens. "Please, Jack..."

Opening his mouth to say no, he makes the mistake of meeting her eyes; they are huge and desperate, and bright with something that bears an alarming resemblance to tears.

He sighs, heavily. "I'll do what I can," he promises, loosening her clutching fingers from his sleeve as gently as he can. And grunts in pain when she immediately throws her arms around him, hugging him tightly with utter disregard for the still-healing cut on his side, as well as for his reputation.

"Thank you, Jack," she murmurs into his shirt.

"Don't mention it," he says. "Now would you-- _ow_ \--care to ease up a bit? Something to be said for showing consideration to a wounded man, savvy?"

"Sorry," she says breathlessly, releasing him. But the brilliant smile she gives him is full of hope, and he thinks, inconsequentially, that she has absolutely no right to walk about being so bloody beautiful. He experiences an illogical twinge of disappointment. Ten minutes ago, he almost had her talked into turning pirate. There'll be no more of that. He knows her mind is fixed irrevocably on her precious William, now.

His next thought runs something along the lines of _Oh, hell. She honestly trusts that I'll be able to pull this one off._

Beside him, Ana makes a disgusted noise. "I knew it."

"What's that, love?"

"I knew you'd want to go after that young fool soon as you heard." She scowls at him. "One of these times that honest streak of yours is goin' to get you killed, Jack Sparrow, and probably the lot of us, too."

"Ana, please. You heard the lass." His cheerful tone belies a creeping sense of anxiety. "I'm Captain Jack Sparrow. What could possibly go wrong, eh?"


	20. Once More Asea

**XIX.  
Once More Asea**

 

_The sun was setting in the west  
The birds were winging o'er the sea  
All nature seemed inclined for to rest  
But still there was no rest for me._

\--"Farewell to Nova Scotia"

* * *

Anamaria lounges against the mainmast, arms crossed, watching her Captain talking with Will Turner's wife. The two stand close together near the Great Cabin, his dark head bent to her tawny one, their conversation inaudible above the shouts and bustle of the crew as they prepare the _Pearl_ for departure. After a moment, Jack lifts a hand and tucks a stray curl back from the Swann girl's face, then touches her shoulder fleetingly before he takes the steps two at a time up to the poop deck.

Ana purses her lips, and reiterates to herself her earlier-stated opinion that taking the lass aboard will be nothing but trouble. And that was before she'd known the identity of said lass, as well.

_Hope you know what game it is you're playing at, Jack Sparrow._

_Hope she has enough sense to know it, too._

The girl hasn't moved; she glances from side to side at the mostly-organized chaos that surrounds her, clutching her battered rucksack tightly and looking more than a bit lost. Taking pity on her, Ana beckons her over.

"You come along with me, Mistress Turner, and we'll see about gettin' you settled," she says gruffly. "Oy! Cotton! Lay off coddling that blasted bird for a minute, if you please, and bring one of them spare hammocks up to my cabin for the lady."

The mute pirate nods at her with his customary grin of good nature, sending his beloved parrot up to perch in the rigging--from whence it regards Ana with one beady eye, ruffles its bedraggled feathers, and proclaims indignantly, "Really bad eggs! Grawk!"

"Speak for yourself, you sorry excuse for a feather-duster," she mutters in its general direction. She's ready to wager who decided to teach the bird that particular epithet.

A tiny half-smile flashes across Elizabeth Turner's features and vanishes before Ana can read it properly.

"Don't know why I put up with the damn creature," Ana grumbles. "C'mon, girl, let's go below. The crew, they're good lads all, but they'd be fair distracted by a lady bunkin' in with them." She leads her new charge toward the hatch. "Cap'n says you're to stay with me."

"That's very nice of you, Miss Ana, but I don't wish to trouble you..."

"It's no trouble," Ana says shortly. "'Less, of course," she adds, giving the lass a pointed look, "you'd rather sleep in his cabin, that is."

"No, no, that's quite all right." The girl's hasty disavowal sounds somewhat flustered as she follows Ana down to the crew deck. "Is that what _he_ said?"

Ana chuckles. "No. Though if I know our Jack, you can be sure he wouldn't mind..." She pushes open the door to the small stern gallery. "Now, it's not much," she warns her guest. "But at least it's a place to hang a hammock and dress yourself away from prying eyes." Also a place to use a chamber pot in private, a true luxury--at least after Anamaria stuffed the knothole in the door with cloth and pitch, and started checking it regularly to make sure no one had pushed it out again. Still, Pintel and Ragetti _would_ lurk about outside, until she threatened to put out Ragetti's other eye and feed it to his fat friend if she ever found them trying to play peeping Toms.

Mrs. Turner hesitates at the threshold, an odd expression on her pretty face.

"Bit smaller than you're used to, eh?"

"No...it's not that," Elizabeth says slowly. "It's lovely, really." She gives Ana a perfunctory smile, but her focus is distant, eyes clouded. "It's just--I remember this room. From before..."

"Before," Ana says, mystified.

The girl walks past her to stare out the slanted windows. "This is where...they kept me. On the way to Isla de Muerte."

Anamaria clears her throat. "Did Barbossa mistreat you greatly, then, lass?"

"Mistreat me?" Elizabeth glances up from tracing patterns on the glass, and laughs a little, though with little mirth. "No, he didn't ever touch me, if that's what you mean. I think he'd given up trying to satisfy his lust, by then. But he found my fear...gratifying." She straightens her shoulders, visibly shaking off her memories. "The _Pearl_ is very different now, of course."

"Aye. I recollect we had a right time of it, cleanin' away the filth and fixin' all her rottin' planks." Ana grins. "'Twas a good job we finished up most of the repairs before we went back for the Cap'n. As it was, took him a long time to get over the state Barbossa'd left her in."

"I can imagine," the girl says, softly. "He truly loves this ship, doesn't he?"

"Aye, that he does." Ana pauses. "Jack Sparrow's loved many a woman in his time...and left 'em, every one, for his heart and soul belong first to the _Pearl_ , and to the the sea. Always have, always will. And I'd pity the lass who'd try to change that about him." She speaks casually, but she finds herself hoping that Mrs. Turner will take the words to heart.

"I certainly don't find that hard to believe," Elizabeth says, her tone caustic. "Jack's never quite struck me as the faithful sort." But she avoids Ana's eyes, returning her attention to the window and her fingers' restless movements.

"No, in his own way, Jack's a good man, and a true one," Ana corrects her. "He's never made a secret of where his loyalties lie, girl. Much more honest than he makes himself out to be, is Jack Sparrow."

Elizabeth looks to be about to respond, but is interrupted by a knock on the door. Ana opens it to admit Cotton with a rolled-up canvas hammock. "You can hang it right there in the corner," she tells him, and goes to assist him. In a few minutes the job is finished and the mute departs from the cabin, bobbing his grizzled head politely in Elizabeth's direction.

"You can use the pot in here, Mistress Turner, if you don't take offense at emptyin' it by turns," Ana informs her, when they are alone again. "We've got no servants on the _Pearl_ , mind, so we all do our part."

To her surprise, the girl nods her assent; Ana would have expected her to be a bit more squeamish about accepting such a task, with her being born and bred a lady and likely unused to cleaning up after herself.

"Thank you, Ana," she says. "You are very kind to let me stay here."

Ana dismisses her gratitude with a wave of her hand. "No matter. I've got to get above, though. We'll soon be hoistin' anchor to set off on this damn fool rescue mission of yours."

Mrs. Turner has the grace to appear somewhat apologetic. "I know I'm causing you all a great deal of trouble," she says hesitantly. "And I know Jack's taking a great risk on my account, agreeing to do this for me. But...I can't just..." She trails off, swallows convulsively. "I have to fight for him, Anamaria. I can't just let him go..."

"If it makes you feel any better, I reckon the Cap'n would've gone to your Will's aid, regardless of whether you were here or no." She heads to the door. "Jack does what he does on his own account, and no one else's, lass, remember that."

But the other woman seems to not have heard her; she has resumed her post at the window, her head dropping forward to rest on the glass. Ana waits for a moment, and then moves to leave. As she does so, she catches the girl's faint whisper.

"I'm so sorry..."

The quartermaster turns back quickly, but it's plain that Elizabeth Turner's words of regret are no longer meant for Ana's ears.

* * *

Jack has just given the order to sail when his first mate joins him at the helm.

"Ah, good," he says. "Where's Miss Swann?"

"Mistress Turner stayed below."

Jack notices her use of Elizabeth's married name, and glances swiftly at her, but Anamaria's face betrays no hidden meaning. "She all right?"

"In a bit of a state about her man, she is. Best to leave her be," Ana adds, sharply, as Jack straightens from his lounging position at the wheel. "Lass needs time to get her head straight, and your company won't be doin' much to help her, I'd wager."

"You're saying I'm not a calming influence?"

Ana chuckles dryly. "I wouldn't say 'twere one of your strong points, Jack."

"Hmph." Despite his affronted snort, he knows Ana is probably right. Since they boarded the _Pearl_ , Elizabeth has become quiet and distant every time he's spoken to her. Except for that brief moment a little while ago, when she stopped him on his way up to the foredeck.

"Jack--" she'd said, catching his sleeve. "I wanted to--"

Then she paused, biting her lip, and he said patiently, "What is it, then, love?"

But when she looked up at him, her expression had changed. She said, "It'll be all right, won't it, Jack?" and he got the idea, somehow, that was not what she had been about to say. "Tell me he'll be all right..."

That fragility he'd noticed earlier was still lurking behind her eyes; he raised tentative fingers to brush aside a strand of wind-blown golden hair that had tangled itself in her lashes.

"He'll be all right," he said, trying his best to sound as if he meant it. And she smiled a little, as if she were trying her best to believe him.

The sound of the anchor clanking into the hawse brings him back to the present, and the _Black Pearl_ shudders beneath him as her canvas unfurls and fills. He lays his hands upon the familiar smooth-worn curve of the wheel, anticipating the customary thrill of pleasure that always washes through him when the _Pearl_ sets sail at his command. But today, curiously, that feeling of liberation, of completeness, the sense that the world is his for the taking--and that, therefore, all is right with said world--remains conspicuously absent. Thoughts of the waiting horizon and all its promise are replaced by the indelible image of Elizabeth Turner's fine-boned face turned up to his, her lovely, haunted eyes brimming with desperation and some other emotion that he cannot name for the life of him.

Damn the woman. He has no intention of letting on to anyone, least of all the lady herself, the extent to which she invaded his dreams last night, effectively scuttling any small chance he had of restful sleep on dry land. He'd finally risen and gone to knock on her door, for what purpose he cannot guess at even now, and found her gone. And it was the direction pointed him by a grizzled old sailor smoking his pipe outside the inn door, and a slurred affirmation that aye, the lass had headed thataway--rather than some occult foreknowledge of the _Pearl_ 's arrival, as he's fully prepared to allow her to continue believing--which led him down to the docks early this morning.

He looks up to find Ana observing him shrewdly.

"Everything all right with you, Cap'n?"

"Quite," he says, hastily assuming an attitude of studied nonchalance. "Just gettin' reacquainted with the _Pearl_ , thinkin' on how good it is to be back asea again where I belong, savvy?"

"And 'tis good to have you back." She peers at him. "Still, you've been awfully quiet today. You're not ill, are you?"

"I am never ill," he informs her, irritated, and adds by way of distraction: "C'mon, Ana, I know you enjoy your little jaunts as Cap'n, now and again, so don't tell me you don't feel at least the barest smidgen of regret when you turn her over to me in the end." He raises an eyebrow at her. "Hasn't it occurred to you to finally take what I owe you, and sail off into the Caribbean sunset with what I'm sure you believe is rightfully yours?"

"Take the _Pearl_?" Ana appears startled. "No, Jack. I had me proper chance with the _Interceptor_ years ago, and I steered her to her fiery end, and lost her." She shakes her head. "Besides, I'd be a right fool to try and steal her. You'd never rest 'til you caught up with me, had me keelhauled, and taken your darlin' back."

"Aye, and you'd best hope keelhauling would be the worst I'd do to you," he warns her; playfully, because they both know she means what she says. For all her invective and insubordination, Anamaria--odd bird that she is--possesses a deep-running and stubborn streak of loyalty that Jack hasn't had reason to question since she and Gibbs came to his rescue on the day of his almost-hanging in Port Royal.

"I'm shakin' in me boots, I am," she answers, grinning. Then she grows abruptly serious. "I hope you have a plan for how we're to get away with this venture, Cap'n."

"No plan, as such," he says cautiously. "Not as yet. But I'm sure to come upon something," he adds, as the quartermaster's countenance acquires a distinctly ominous cast. "Tell me, what d'you know of this scoundrel Morena?"

"Not an enemy as I'd like to cross, from what I hear, and not a nice man neither." Ana presses her lips into a thin line, her tone grim. "Got something of a taste for torture, or so the stories go. And he means business with Turner. I was talkin' to Gibbs earlier--seems young Will had a hand, or two, in the death of Morena's whelp, few months back."

"So this is a vengeance game." Jack frowns. "Can't say I see Will as the murdering type, though. What's that all about, d'you think?"

She shrugs. "Lad never mentioned it to me. You think his girl might know something?"

"No," Jack says slowly. "No, I wager Mrs. Turner has very little knowledge of what her dear husband's been up to of late." He rounds on his first mate. "Do me a favor, Ana, darling. Don't you go telling the lass that bit about the killin', and certainly nothing about 'torture', savvy?"

"Aye, as you say, Cap'n," she assures him.

But the look with which she favors him is a searching one, and Jack is hard put not to shift uneasily under her gaze. Sometimes, Ana shows a disturbing tendency towards being far _too_ savvy.

"The girl's had enough of a shock already this morning, is all," he says to the look, and busies himself in steering the _Black Pearl_ around a nonexistent shoal. Ridiculous, that, as there are no shoals, reefs, sand bars or otherwise, this far out in Tortuga harbor, but there's always a chance that Ana won't remember that fact.

Blast. No dice. Of course she knows there's nothing there...she was probably born sailing this particular bay.

"Well, go on." He waves her away. "Don't you have work to do? Ol' Gibbs is probably gettin' into the rum supply again...you should consider puttin' a stop to such shameful behavior. And at the odd chance he's not, I'm sure there's some scurvy dog or other on this ship who's sorely in need of a right scolding, and there's no doubt in me mind you're the woman for the job."

She regards him steadily, arms folded.

"By the devil...what is it, woman? Speak, or be off with you."

"You're a right fool, Jack Sparrow," she announces, in a calm voice.

"Sticks an' stones, love," he answers easily. "Though I must say I haven't the faintest idea what you're on about."

"I think you're a liar," she says. "You may be fool enough, but I'm not, nor blind either." She meets his puzzled gaze accusingly, though he suspects that subtle flicker in her dark eyes betrays something like amusement. "Lord, it's easy enough to see, even if I were."

"Ana--" he growls, frustration on the rise. "Desist with the blasted riddles already. No point or purpose in bein' cryptic with a right fool like me, is there? Now, out with it, if you please."

"You care for the lass," Ana says softly. "Don't you."

He stares at her, shocked. "Care for--?" The _Pearl_ jerks to starboard suddenly as his hands slacken on the wheel, and he hauls her back hard aport with an oath, ignoring the startled exclamations from the men on the main deck. "Bloody hell. She's ol' Bill's daughter-in-law, y'know--'tis only natural I should be concerned for her welfare." He pauses to yell irritably down to the crew that no, they haven't bloody run aground, for Christ's sake, and then continues, "Besides, I don't fancy the prospect of hearing her fall into hysterics over the thought of dear Will on the rack."

Not that Elizabeth has ever been the hysterical type. Much more likely that she'd rage, pace, and throw things...probably at him...than scream and cry. He winces at the thought.

"Oh. Aye," Anamaria says, sarcastically. "And it's on Bootstrap Bill's account that you just let the rudder swing near six points to starboard. My mistake, I grant you."

She turns on her heel and walks away, out of earshot of anything but a shout before he has the time to formulate an appropriately insouciant retort.

Cursing under his breath, he faces the bowsprit grimly; his fingers tighten into a stranglehold around the wheel in a futile effort to sublimate his exasperation, and to suppress an odd rush that resembles nothing so much as...panic.

He understands what Ana was getting at, aye. It's his own response to her words that he finds inexplicable.

"Women," he mutters, for what seems like the umpteenth time in the past few days alone.

* * *

Elizabeth awakes to a gently swaying darkness.

After Ana left her alone in the cabin, she had stood for a long time at the window, watching her breath fog the imperfect glass, mind blank and immobilized under the heavy ache of guilt and fear. When she roused herself at last, it was only to curl up in her borrowed hammock, where the rocking motion of the _Black Pearl_ immediately lulled her into the blessedly deep sleep of utter emotional exhaustion.

There's no way of telling how many hours she's been asleep, though she guesses the night is well-advanced. She stretches experimentally, feeling the unfamiliar alternation of give and tautness in the canvas supporting her, and then stiffens as the knowledge of where she is and why she is here comes racing back into her now fully-conscious mind.

Her body contracts in something that is not quite a sob; she wraps her arms around herself, a feeble defense against the onslaught of memory.

_No, no, no. Not real. Not Will..._

But beneath her frantic litany of denial, she knows the thing she dreads is all too real. Somewhere out on the black sea beyond the window, her husband is preparing to give up his freedom--his life--for hers.

_What if we're too late--?_

_No. We can't be. Don't even think it._

Elizabeth can hear Anamaria's slow, even breathing from the hammock across from her own, and shifts restlessly, envying the quartermaster her undisturbed slumber. As for herself, she knows she will sleep no more tonight. Nonetheless, she squeezes her eyes shut and tries to relax, drawing out her breaths to match Ana's measured rhythm.

As she expected, it's no use. Her inhalations catch and stutter in her throat; her lungs seem disinclined to fill properly.

She rolls to the side, tipping the hammock so that she can reach her feet to the boards of the floor, and stands, hesitating briefly before she eases the door open and slips out of the cabin. A single low-burning lantern lights her path past the snoring men of the crew; she moves stealthily across the mid-deck to climb the stairs that lead above.

At the top of the hatchway she pauses again, tipping her head back, welcoming the freshness of the sea air after the stale atmosphere of belowdecks. The arching sky is thick with stars, and the waning half-moon sinks towards the sea off the _Black Pearl'_ s starboard rail. Most of the men on night watch have gathered near the stern, arguing in low voices over a dice game. A lone youth industriously swabbing down the main deck touches his cap and murmurs something indistinct in her direction.

It's strange to think that she knows so few members of the _Pearl'_ s crew. There had been no time for formal introductions during the 'Interceptor's headlong flight away from Isla de Muerta, three years ago; later, when she liberated the men from the brig of the 'Pearl', she had learned some of their names, though she's since forgotten to which faces most of those names belonged. And Jack has likely picked up a good number of other faithful scoundrels since that day. Elizabeth gives the cabin boy as much of a smile as she can muster, heading aft towards the poop deck and the unmistakable figure silhouetted there against the stars.

The Captain seems unaware of her approach; one lax hand keeps time on the wheel as he hums softly to himself. Topping the stairs, she catches the strains of a familiar tune and almost laughs out loud, temporarily forgetting the anxiety weighting her heart.

"Yo ho, yo ho--"

Impulsively, she adds her voice to his on the refrain, and sees him go quite still.

"Didn't know you were up and about, Mrs. Turner," he says; his back remains to her, his words just barely distinguishable. "Couldn't sleep?"

She can't remember him ever calling her by her married name; it surprises her. After a moment, she answers, "On the contrary, it seems I slept the day away. Someone should have woken me."

"Ah. Miss Ana gave strict orders that you were not to be disturbed." He stirs, turns half-towards her. "You feelin' more yourself, then?"

She doesn't reply, unwilling to express her state of mind aloud, even to him. Or would that be especially to him? She can't decide.

"Ah." He nods sagely, just as if she's revealed her innermost secrets rather than just stood before him in silence.

He is curiously laconic tonight, she thinks. It is only on hearing the subtle clink of glass meeting wood that she notices the glint of the bottle clutched idly in his left hand. He offers it to her, executing a sardonic little half-bow. "Rum, m'lady? Might help."

"Oh, Jack." She comes to his side, managing to keep most of the tremor out of her light laugh. "Tell me, are you ever sober?"

"Not if I can help it." He sounds absolutely serious, but she cannot read much of his expression in the darkness. He tips the bottle her way invitingly. "From me own private supply," he announces. "Very high-quality stuff."

She accepts the decanter, swallows a sip's worth. It numbs her lips, burns all the way to the pit of her stomach and pools warmly there. "By all that's holy," she says on a half-gasp, and hands it back to him. "It's good to be the Captain, it would seem."

"Title mos' def'nitely has its perks," he slurs.

"Jack? Just how drunk are you?"

"Enough."

She shakes her head at him. "Should you even be steering the _Pearl_ when you're like this?"

"Never been a problem in the past," he says, with a touch of belligerence. "'Sides, she's runnin' before a lovely steady crosswind. Not much work required to keep her on her proper course."

"Oh?" She lounges against the portside rail, raises her eyebrows. "So where precisely are we, by your calculations, Captain Sparrow?"

"Bearing two points sou'east, speed between eight and nine knots, sailing roughly parallel to the coast of Hispaniola at an approximate distance of twelve kilometers," he recites glibly. "Which, before you ask, likely indicates we'll be gaining our objective by tomorrow afternoon." He takes a long swallow of rum. "Barring any unforeseen difficulties, that is."

She shivers a little; the bottle is instantly re-extended.

"Cold, love?"

"No. It's not that." She waves the alcohol away impatiently.

"Ah," he says; it seems to be his word of the evening. He straightens, looking directly at her for the first time since the conversation began. "You're worried over your William, is that it?"

She drops her head, examining the worn, stained boards of the deck. "Of course I am worried," she begins, carefully. And then blurts out before she can stop herself, "He would die for me--and I..."

He sets his decanter down with exaggerated precision and steps toward her, wobbling only slightly despite his supposed intoxication. "And...you, Elizabeth?"

She glances up at him; most of his face is lost in shadow, though she can just make out the piercing gleam of his deep-set eyes.

"And I, I..." She falters momentarily under the intensity of his regard. "I can't help but think--if he'd only known I was safe--"

"He couldn't have known, love." His words are quiet, almost gentle.

"But he could have!" she cries out. Then, struggling to modulate the harsh desperation vibrating in her voice, she adds more softly, "He looked right at me, Jack, and I could have said something! I should have said something--he would have known--I should have--"

Jack cuts her off, gripping her shoulders lightly and giving her a quick shake. "Aye, and if you had, he would have stopped, wanting to know what in the devil you were doing in the kitchen of Tortuga's most notorious dive, at which point his enemy would have caught him, and me as well, right then and there while you were trying to explain yourself properly."

"Then I shouldn't have been there," she persists dully. "I should have stayed home in the first place...he wouldn't have let them take him if it weren't for me." She can feel herself trembling; Jack's fingers tighten on her shoulders, steadying her. "It's still my fault, Jack."

"Elizabeth. Darling. Look at me."

Instead, she averts her gaze, afraid that he might see the tears that sting her eyes; but he drags her chin upwards, his other hand still resting on her upper arm.

"We've been over this one, love," he says. "There's no use blaming yourself for what is. It's past now."

"I know. Over and done, and can't be altered...I know that. All too well." Her throat constricts, and she swallows against the rising ache of it. "But you--you don't know what the worst part is, do you, Jack?" She doesn't wait for him to respond. "Of course you don't. You haven't thought about it...probably wouldn't understand it, what it means, if you did--"

He frowns. "What wouldn't I understand?"

"Two nights ago, when he was offering himself up for my sake--that was the night that I was--that we--"

She cannot go on, and his arms drop to his sides; she tries to ignore the sense that the sudden withdrawal of his touch has left her inexplicably adrift and at a loss.

"Terrible, aye," he says, and she thinks she detects an undercurrent of bitterness in his tone. "Be that as it may, Elizabeth--you would have done the same for him, were your positions reversed, would you not? I've seen you do as much. You were set to marry the Commodore to save him. Giving up your life doesn't always mean dying."

"Yes," she says. "And I would have. Still would. But there is also a much more difficult question that follows that one, Jack."

"And what might that be, lass?"

She draws in a long, uneven breath. "The question," she whispers, "of whether I could sacrifice your life, to save Will's."

There is a brief, startled silence on both their parts, before he says, voice oddly rough, "Would it truly be so hard for you, love, to give me up?"

She meets his eyes, then, and once again she cannot speak. He stares at her for a long moment, a peculiar little smile playing about his lips.

"In that case, my dear," he murmurs finally, "let us by all means hope that circumstances do not come to such a pretty pass."

And adds, thoughtfully, "For all our sakes..."


	21. The Bells of Navidad

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It has been pointed out to me that the word Navidad means "Christmas" in Spanish and is thus not a particularly good name for a town. However, "La Navidad" was the name of the original fort founded on Christmas Day, 1492 in Hispaniola by C. Columbus. The location of Fort Navidad in this story corresponds with the port marked "Nativita" on a period map of the island viewable at Wikipedia (under the filename 15thcenturyhispaniola.jpg, should anyone want to see for themselves)--on the coast of modern Haiti, southeast of Tortuga. Whether the settlement was still there and still named the same thing during the hand-wavy period of PotC is anyone's guess. I've played extremely fast and loose with the history of Hispaniola here, I should add, but at the same time, I'm not just pulling this stuff out of thin air. Well, not all of it, anyway.

**XX.  
The Bells of Navidad**

_The thread of our life would be dark, Heaven knows!  
If it were not with friendship and love intertwin'd;  
And I care not how soon I may sink to repose  
When these blessings shall cease to be dear to my mind.  
But they who have loved the fondest, the purest  
Too often have wept o'er the dream they believed;  
And the heart that has slumbered in friendship securest  
Is happy indeed if 'twas never deceived._

\--"O! Think Not My Spirits are Always as Light"  
(words by Thomas Moore)

* * *

"We've changed course."

Norrington stirs at the rail of the _Dauntless,_ nodding acknowledgment to the speaker who comes to stand beside him on the foredeck; in the pre-dawn light, Will Turner's face is drawn and pale. Turner has kept to his cabin for the past two days, and Norrington's lieutenant reported that the standard-issue rations delivered to the boy's door have been cleared away untouched. Norrington wonders if Will has slept any more than he's eaten; somehow, he rather doubts it.

Turner stares past the Commodore through the drifting mist off the _Dauntless'_ s bow, bleak gaze seeking the fuzzy, swaying lantern glow that marks _La Venganza_ 's position; he continues as if to himself, "I didn't think it would be so soon..."

"We have not sailed nearly as far as Port Liberty," Norrington agrees, and clears his throat. "I had supposed that the prisoners were being held there at the garrison. But it appears Morena has some other destination in mind..."

Will jerks his head around, dismayed, a hint of life flickering momentarily in the shadowed eyes. "And you trust him?"

The Commodore sighs, feeling suddenly as exhausted as Turner looks. "Of course I don't. However--"

"You don't know what kind of trick he's planning, what trap he could be leading us into. For God's sake, Norrington, do you know what this man is capable of? What I've seen--" His voice cracks a little and he falls silent, passing a hand across his face as if trying unsuccessfully to wipe away a vision plaguing his mind's eye.

"I do what I must," Norrington says, after a moment. "Had I a choice in the matter..." He pauses, adds sharply, "Surely I don't have to remind you what's at stake here, Mr. Turner."

He hears Will's sharp inhalation; the boy has stiffened, recoiled from Norrington's words as he might from a blow, the color of real emotion flaring on his waxy cheeks. "No!" The single syllable bursts out as if torn from his throat; officers and sailors look toward them, trying to determine whether their commander is in any immediate danger from his distraught civilian companion. Norrington catches Hayes' questioning glance and shakes his head slightly, gesturing that they all should return to their tasks.

"I know," Will rushes on, in a hoarse undertone. "Of course I know. I can't forget. I'd like to...God help me, I'd like to, just for a little while at least...but I can't sleep, can't close my eyes, because every time I do--" He swallows hard, then continues carefully, "Morena's men are not chosen for their kindness to prisoners, or to the weaker sex. It might have been a happier fate for Elizabeth had she--"

But the import of what he was about to say overwhelms him. He turns and walks hurriedly astern before the Commodore can formulate an appropriate reply; his steps are haphazard, the gait of a half-blind man, and he stumbles more than once before he reaches the rear cabins.

Norrington's never been an extraordinarily religious man; God-fearing and meeting-going to be sure, but more a man of action than of contemplation. But now, he braces both his hands on the salt-soaked wood of the rail, lowers his head, and prays.

"God preserve us all." The words come awkwardly to lips more used to issuing commands than asking for grace. "Have mercy upon us sinners..."

_Now; and in the hour of our deaths..._

* * *

In his cabin, Will buries his face in his hands. His ears are ringing. He wishes he could sleep, sleep without dreaming.

_No more dreams, soon enough..._

He wonders if he will see her again, and he tries to picture how it will be if he does: sees a slim figure standing at the end of a line of bedraggled men, three days ago (only three days?) his crew. Sees tangled, tarnished-honey tresses spilling over proudly unbent shoulders, her slim back straight, though her gaze seeks the ground; in his half-waking state he calls her name, and imagines that she starts, stares around wildly, unable to see him where he stands surrounded by Morena's lackeys.

He wants to take her by the shoulders and demand to know why, why, why, why she did it, why she deceived him, why it's ending this way. They're already pulling him away from her, but not before he sees that her face is bruised, her forehead bloodied, and her eyes-- As they finally meet his for the last time, her eyes are dull, all the spirit gone out of them, lifeless and weary as he feels. Her skirts are ripped, stained with filth; his imagination shrinks from what she must have endured these last few days, and he cannot bear to look anymore...

The ringing in his ears increases steadily, filling his aching brain. He raises his head. The sound is not just in his mind. He drags himself to his feet, flings open the cabin door.

The fog has begun to lift; through the scraps of mist he can see the shore, a small garrison and harbor village, and on the cliffs a whitewashed Catholic mission, from whence the bells. God, the bells--he shields his eyes from the morning light, shrinks back from the clear, continuous noise floating down to the _Dauntless_ , sways on his feet. The bells keep ringing, the sound vibrating in his aching temples, haunting him.

 _Soon_ , the bells say. _Soon enough._

But in his heart, it is already over.

Across the water in the harbor, he suddenly recognizes the triad of masts and the graceful if storm-battered hull of a vessel trussed and anchored at the pier.

His lost ship...the _Lady Swann._

He shuts the door.

* * *

The two warships have dropped anchor a wary distance away from one another, looking bulky and out of place in the small, serene bay of the small port known as Villa De Navidad; the _Dauntless,_ a larger and heavier ship, drifts some hundred yards off-shore while the lighter _La Venganza_ noses smugly up to the docks.

There is no response to Norrington's light knock; he pushes the door of the stern cabin open, suddenly afraid of what he may or may not find therein. But Will Turner is there; back propped against the near wall, he sits unmoving on the sailor's cot he's been provided with, staring fixedly at the knots in the woodgrain of the hull, his hands loosely covering his ears.

"Good God, man," Norrington begins; at his words the younger man startles as if out of a sound sleep, and the Commodore experiences an odd little shock of relief. For a split second, he thought the boy might have done the unthinkable. But Turner is alive, though he glances toward the door with an blank expression so void of recognition that Norrington may as well have been a stranger to him.

"It's time," the Commodore says, and does not allow any trace of relief into his voice.

Turner doesn't answer. Rising mechanically, he walks out of the cabin past Norrington, looking straight ahead at nothing at all.

* * *

Around him, an argument is taking place. He sways, knowing he must look like a drunk man, or perhaps a crazy one; he realizes vaguely that his own fate may be one of the major objects of contention, but he's devoting his full concentration to maintaining his balance on solid ground, his sleep-starved reflexes slow to adjust to a world that does not dip and roll. He never used to have this problem; most of the time, it's much easier to correct for his sea legs. Still, Elizabeth had noticed it the last time he'd come home to Port Royal.

"Look at that roll in your step, Will," she'd teased. "You're starting to walk like a sailor. A few more years, darling, and you'll be staggering about like Jack Sparrow himself..."

She said it laughingly, but she'd sounded oddly wistful too, and a bit scolding; reminding him he spent more time at sea than on shore with his wife, as she has been more frequently each time he returns. He has begun to dread her pointed comments; they've become steadily sharper over the years, stinging him with lingering needles of guilt.

_When did coming home become more obligation than reward?_

He remembers that conversation vividly; it seems far more immediate than the surreal events unfolding around him, the nightmare of the past few days.

She'd waited at the top of the main staircase, thin arms crossed, not coming down to greet him but challenging him to come to her. If anything she'd lost weight in the time he'd been away, though before he'd left last time (four months ago was it? Or five?) he'd sternly assigned the cook the responsibility of making sure Mrs. Turner was tempted with the richest, most varied fare the Governor's pension could provide.

He took the steps two at a time to meet her and swing her into his arms, and she embraced him as warmly as she always did, but after they'd kissed their hellos and stood back he caught a curious remoteness staring back at him from her smiling face, and he felt suddenly as if he was looking at a woman he barely knew; her glance veiled, brown eyes dark with secrets. She must have been planning her foolish scheme even then, he thinks. If only he'd tried a little harder to discover what that expression meant, lifted the veil enough to see her...

"What is it, love?" he'd asked her, then, and she said only, "Nothing, darling; I'm just glad you're home," and took his hand gaily, leading him toward their chambers; and he'd thought nothing more about that guarded, distant Elizabeth he'd glimpsed, until now.

_Elizabeth, my love...how long ago did we become such strangers to one another?_

He does recall a time when it seemed there was no stray concern or dream or fancy that was too small to share between them. Then, he'd been content to listen to her hour upon hour, hear how she'd run about like a wild thing in the moorland where she'd been born, where her family's old gamekeeper had filled her young head with exciting tales of adventure and piracy on the high seas. How once transplanted to America she'd run about on the beaches and cliffs of Port Royal, just as wild as ever, waiting to see pirate sails on the horizon, until she'd been taken in hand at fifteen years old and cajoled, bullied and bribed into learning to act like a lady. How by the time pirate sails finally had appeared, she'd almost forgotten she'd ever been anything else but. And she'd been fascinated (or pretended to be fascinated!) when he talked about the discipline of metalworking, of how a blade had to be heated to a precise temperature before it could be shaped, and what Master Brown had done to him when he'd let four blades cool too quickly one day so that they were brittle and snapped under the hammer, back when Brown had been occasionally sober enough to notice when he ruined an order and had to start over again from scratch...

But after awhile, it had seemed they knew all each other's stories, and Will would fall asleep in the sun while Elizabeth tried to describe the scent of heather after a thunderstorm, or her focus would wander off to sea while he discussed how difficult it was to forge a perfectly balanced sword. Maybe it was then that he'd begun to neglect the woman he knew for the horizon he didn't, gone seeking for new tales with which to catch her fancy. After all, she'd married him for a pirate, not a blacksmith.

He hadn't expected her to change on him in the meantime. It makes him wonder how well he really knew her to begin with.

* * *

"We will absolutely _not_ release Mr. Turner into your custody until you have assured us of Mrs. Turner's well-being." Norrington speaks with his chilliest authority; the mention of Elizabeth registers sluggishly in Will's wandering mind.

_Do believe you've fallen behind again, mate..._

Is that Jack Sparrow's voice in his head again? Will shakes off his memories, straightens his aching back, and forces himself to pay attention to the heated discussion in progress, struggling to catch up.

"And I assure you, my men have not harmed the lady." Morena, ever smooth, never seems to stop smiling. "Again, you question my sense of honor, Senor Commodore, as if you have the advantage. But it seems to me that you are in no position to argue."

Morena's men watch them, impassively alert, from behind their Captain; and there are guards at the pier, armed sailors at the rail of _La Venganza_. Will reflexively weighs their number against that of the Commodore's personal escort, factors in the _Dauntless_ 's position and distance from shore, and comes up with a statistic which Norrington cannot possibly help but be aware of already. Craning his neck, he searches the tight knot of Spanish soldiers, the curious crowd of townspeople gathering at the waterfront; but the captured crew of his _Lady Swann_ is nowhere to be seen, though the ship herself languishes a ways down the wharf, decks empty, proud sails lashed and furled.

"I told you it was a trick," he mutters. In front of him, Norrington makes no sign that he's heard.

"In that case," the Commodore is saying, "there is no reason why you should not bring the prisoners down without delay. I must remind you that the agreement into which I entered specified a direct exchange."

Will waits for the Spanish captain to object. Instead, the man gestures lazily to his lieutenant; his wolfish grin is not the expression of a man who has been out-negotiated. "Very well, then," Morena drawls. "As you wish..."

His officer salutes and moves up the quay towards the village, followed by a small contingent of blue-and-white clad soldiers. Will tracks their progress, the sense of dread that's haunted him for three days rising in his throat and choking him like bile, until the Spaniards disappear into a large, squat building--the harbor-master's offices, perhaps?--at the edge of the town.

The prisoners must have already been brought down from the garrison, he thinks, as soon as Morena arrived. Which must mean that Elizabeth's been there, less than a hundred meters away from him, probably completely unaware of what was happening; maybe she even believes that she is awaiting her own execution...

At the back of the crowd, there is a slight commotion; the villagers make way hastily as the door into which Morena's men vanished a few moments ago swings open, and the prisoners are led out two by two, hands bound behind them, blinking in the morning sun. Will hears someone make a strangled noise; then a hand closes firmly on his shoulder, surprising him. "Steady, man," Norrington says, and Will, beyond questioning the oddity of the Commodore offering such a friendly gesture, realizes that the sound he heard had come from his own throat.

He recognizes his first mate immediately; broad-shouldered Gabriel is one of the last to emerge. He seems to be limping rather badly. He's not the only one wounded; all in all, Will's remaining crew numbers twenty at the most. Of course, a good percentage of the men were ashore on Tortuga when the Spanish attacked the _Lady Swann_ , but Will knows he hadn't left less than twenty-five on board, most asleep, some on night duty. They've lost some, and this new grief pierces his numb brain with unexpected intensity. But where is Elizabeth? Heart pounding, he scans the other weary faces, looking for fine bones, luminous eyes and a slender build...

Norrington curses explicitly and violently under his breath.

Will looks again.

Elizabeth is still not there.

Norrington steps towards Morena. "What is the meaning of this?" The kid gloves have come off, and his voice rings cold with fury. "Where is the lady?"

But Will Turner doesn't wait for the Spaniard's answer; the smug, mocking satisfaction written on the man's face, the cruel twist in that smile, is answer enough for him. With an inarticulate cry, he pushes the Commodore aside to launch himself at Morena; his hands close about the other man's throat, his momentum bringing them both to the ground.

"I'll kill you," he hears himself snarl. "By God, I'll kill you for this, you bloody bastard--"

And pain crashes through his skull, bringing darkness and silence.

* * *

A Spanish soldier's musket butt hits Will's head, hard, and the boy slumps atop his adversary. Morena pushes Turner's unconscious body off of him, on his feet in an instant.

" _Arrancale_ ," he snaps to the soldiers on either side of him. " _Ahora, al barco_! Take him away!"

"Wait," Norrington barks out, and Morena freezes, his glance dropping lazily to the Commodore's drawn pistol. "What of our agreement, Captain Morena? What of your honor?" He allows his disgust for this charlatan to creep into his tone. They are done negotiating, now.

The man's eyes glitter with triumph. "My honor, Senor Commodore, is intact. I agreed to give up these prisoners in exchange for Senor Turner. I never promised that the senora was among them, only that my men had not harmed her...which they most certainly have not." He gestures, and the soldiers lift Will's inert body between them, carrying him up the gangplank of _La Venganza.  
_  
Startled, Norrington recalls the tense dialogue on board the _Dauntless._

_"Hand the prisoners over unharmed, and I'll go without a fight, Morena."_

_"Now that, mi amigo, is an exchange to which I may be persuaded to agree..."_

He does not lower his pistol. "And what of yourself, Captain?" he says softly. "Did you harm Mrs. Turner, then?"

Morena bows, completely undaunted. "My Lord Commodore," he says, unctuous. "I cannot say what I would have done with the lady, had I discovered her. But the fact remains that Senora Turner was not taken into my custody."

Norrington stares; then he turns to the crewmembers of the _Lady Swann_. "Is this true?" he demands of the tall Scotsman whom he remembers as being Will Turner's first mate. "Was Mrs. Turner on board when you were captured, or not?"

"Nay, sir." The sailor shakes his bearded head, expression bewildered. "I don't rightly know what you be meanin'. There never was no female aboard the _Lady_ , and certainly not Will's Lizzie. I know her, and a right noble woman she be, sir." He hesitates. "Something happen to the Missus Turner, Commodore? What be all this about?"

"That, my friend," Norrington says grimly, "remains to be seen."

* * *

Nichole D'Bouvoire, perched on the white rocks of the cliff a stone's throw from the quaint little Christian mission, lowers her spyglass and frowns, just a little.

She'd actually thought for a second that the young, dark-haired man might really kill Morena. She saw it in his face, apparent even through the imperfect lens of the glass: the despair of a man who no longer cared whether he lived or died, the rage that sent him blindly grasping for his enemy's throat like an animal. She knows that expression because she's felt it contort her own face, a lifetime ago but not long enough ago to be forgotten; knows what it's like to be trapped with nothing left to lose. She'd done the same, then, that the young man did: fight. Strike out, draw blood if she could, take as many down with her as possible, because when all else was considered equal, and survival ceased to be a worthy goal, there was never a good reason to go quietly.

She puts a hand to her side, tracing an old scar, proof of one of the many times she went biting, scratching, and kicking. They'd left her for dead for her troubles; she'd never have survived, otherwise. Ironic, that's what the memory is now to her, although at the time she had taken her own salvation personally, as if it was God's own little sadistic joke to save her life when the last thing she'd wanted was to be saved. That was back when Nichole still believed in a God, sadistic or otherwise, before she learned to believe in herself, first and only.

Down in the harbor, the stiff-faced British officer allows himself and his men to be escorted to that lovely captive ship anchored down the wharf, another of Morena's conquests, no doubt. Nichole, watching idly, eyes the graceful carrack, coveting her as she has since she caught sight of her yesterday evening when she arrived, and disgusted because she has no crew with which to sail her. The Redcoats, however, seem to be interested in the ship for other purposes; she observes their thorough search of her, above and below decks, and their evident failure to find whatever it is that they are searching for.

When the Redcoats have finally taken leave of Navidad harbor, and when Morena and his officers at last quit their ship and headed up through the town to the plantation beyond, Nichole has long become impatient and utterly bored with the view. She makes her way down to the village by the goat's road, inconspicuous enough for her peasant girl guise and the shortest, though steepest, path down to the harbor. She has precious few hours of daylight to set up her plan, and she finds herself unexpectedly gripped by a desire to learn the identity of the man who is apparently worth an entire barracks-full of captives all by himself, the man who wants to kill Captain Francisco Morena almost as badly as she does.


	22. Chains

**XXI.  
Chains**

 

_How hard is the place of confinement  
_ _That keeps me from my heart's delight  
_ _Cold iron and chains bound all round me  
_ _And a plank for my pillow at night._

\--"Farewell to All Judges and Juries"

* * *

_Pain._

Will's awareness begins and ends with pain; it swamps him in wave after steady red wave.

Struggling through the waves toward wakefulness, he manages to open his eyes; and then tries to open them again. He wonders if perhaps he has gone blind. He sees nothing but darkness...a damp, foul-smelling darkness, at that. His breath sounds harsh and shallow in his own ears. He tries not to panic. He does not know where he is, how he has come here; he tries to think, but a haze of agony confounds his mind and leaves him choking back nausea.

He wonders if this is Hell.

But Hell sways gently, like a ship at anchor, and the pain subsides slightly, concentrating itself somewhere around the back of his skull and pulsing with his heartbeat. He seizes on that: he has a heartbeat. He is alive. This, then, cannot be Hell.

He spreads his fingers slightly, feeling what can only be dusty straw beneath them, and under the straw, boards. Under the boards, he can hear water sucking at the wood of the hull. He _is_ aboard ship. What ship?

Pushing himself upright on one arm, he recognizes the cold grip of metal on his wrists. Chains rattle, pull taut. Shackles. His attempt at movement immediately brings on another wave of sickness, and he turns his head to retch into the dirty straw.

He is a prisoner. Why?

When his nausea ebbs to a tolerable level of discomfort, he attempts once more to sort through his brain for some clue to his current situation. In the shambles, he finds the last clear memory seems to be of a raging storm, and a loose sail, and the small, slender figure of an unknown deckhand climbing the topmast to lash it. He worries at this image for a little while, unable to lay a finger on its significance.

What had happened after they'd hit that bad weather off the southeast coast of Jamaica?

The flash of gold teeth, and a knowing wink from a kohl-smeared eye.

_Jack Sparrow?_

Norrington's voice, suddenly echoing through his mind like a death knell.

_"You lost her, didn't you."_

"Elizabeth," he says suddenly, into the darkness of the brig. _What about Elizabeth?_

Panic rises in his chest again. He cannot remember. He has done something terribly wrong, he is atoning for something, something to do with Elizabeth, and he cannot remember.

Her face floats to the surface of his embattled memory, her laughing eyes cast sideways, away from him, veiled, elusive. Perhaps she is laughing at him.

This overwhelming sense of loss cannot have come from nowhere. Something terrible has happened, if he can only remember, and nothing will ever be the same again.

"What have I done?" he whispers. And then, "Elizabeth, what have you done?"

* * *

What in Heaven has she done this time?

Seated on an upturned bucket by the _Black Pearl_ 's starboard rail, Elizabeth scowls at the inextricable tangle before her. She rotates the snarled mass in her hands, finds a likely lead, tugs on it experimentally.

Nothing. If anything, the mess has become more hopelessly knotted than ever. She wipes away the sweat beading on her face with the back of one grubby hand; though she managed to find a corner partially shaded by canvas and rail from the glaring late afternoon sun, a syrupy, stifling warmth weights the air today, and the weak breeze blows fitfully, sometimes leaving the sails limp and sending half the crew below to row.

She should be able to solve the damn Gordian Knot in front of her; after all, she tied it herself in the first place.

She was pacing earlier, fretting that they were losing too much time to this beastly calm, her uneasiness magnified by the simmering heat, when Ana intercepted her sixth traversal of the deck. The quartermaster declared sharply that as Elizabeth was setting everyone else on edge by "prowlin' about" she should find something to do with herself forthwith or go below. Elizabeth, however, could not bear the thought of enduring the even more stifling, redolent atmosphere below decks. What she actually wanted to do was talk to Jack Sparrow, though she wasn't entirely sure why or what about; but the captain was nowhere to be found, having vanished sometime in the early morning hours after escorting her back to her cabin. She assumed he was asleep.

So, rather than compromise her pride by seeking him out, she accepted Ana's challenge to "learn a bit of seaworthiness," and after a half-hour or so under Ana's gruff but expert tutelage she was left alone to practice various sailor's hitches. But her mind began to wander back to conversations held on ships' decks under the stars, and her adherence to Ana's simple instructions became increasingly haphazard. She has been struggling to unravel the result of her woolgathering without success for some ten minutes now.

The coarse fibers of the rope have irritated her palms and roughened her skin, but not enough to prevent her sweaty fingers from slipping as she yanks at another loop in a vain attempt to loosen it. She curses under her breath, tears of frustration pricking at her eyelids, the muscles of her back tightly knotted as the tack in her hands. This reminds her of nothing more strongly than learning to embroider: an activity she detests as much today as she did as the young tomboy she was, forced to wear lacy dresses, sit in one place for hours, and sew small pink letters that spelled out some pious sentiment or domestic truism.

"You're going about it all backwards, y'know." The mild drawl vibrates with amusement.

Elizabeth jumps, and drops her clump of knots, flushing. "Jack!"

"Not difficult in the least to catch you unawares, is it now?" He's standing not two feet away from her, that irritating half-smile pulling at his lips, head tilted in mock assessment.

"Well, perhaps you oughtn't creep about so--"

As if he hasn't heard her, he continues, "That shall have to be remedied, love, if we're to make any sort of decent pirate lass of you."

Recovering herself and her disastrous project, she glares at him. "How long have you been watching me?"

"I beg your pardon, ma'am." He saunters over to pluck the hopeless mess from her grasp. "I was doing no such thing."

"No?"

"Not at all," he says. She finds herself fascinated by his hands as he runs them absently over the knots, testing an occasional loop here and there. They _are_ rather nice hands, despite the callouses and tarry nails, clever and fine-boned; she tries not to remember just how clever they can be on her skin. "I simply wandered past on me way somewhere else, and happened to notice a damsel in need of assistance, which I am now endeavoring to provide. Ah." In one deft movement the snag vanishes, the rope coiling politely under his touch as if it had never snarled fractiously for her. He presents it to her with a flourish.

"How did you do that?"

"Quite simple, really," he says airily. "Just pulled the right end, is all. See--" he squats down facing her, and helpfully transforms the tack into another unfathomable tangle to show how she went astray before unraveling it once more and following the steps correctly. But his animated, tangential explanation quickly loses her; again, she fixes her attention on his swiftly moving fingers, until she realizes he has stopped speaking altogether.

She looks up, disconcerted, to find him studying her, that same trace of a smile playing across his features. She squirms a little under his scrutiny.

"Oh, for the love of--What is it, Jack?"

"Nothing," he murmurs, and grins at her suddenly and brilliantly, startled out of some odd Sparrowish reverie. "It's only--you've a smudge, just here," and he indicates his own forehead.

The handkerchief he produces appears unexpectedly clean; nonetheless, she regards it, and him, with suspicion. He makes a peculiar noise, then, and captures her chin in his hand before she can escape him. But he only wipes her brow gently with the cloth.

"There," he mutters. "Off the rope, I expect. Although I must admit you look quite fetching, with that kerchief over your hair and tar on your face...rather a better look for you than one might imagine. Will you kindly cease your twitching," he adds testily as she attempts to move away from him, and holds her jaw firmly still. He is, she realizes, inspecting the partially-healed scratch on her throat.

She'd forgotten the kerchief Ana had lent her this morning to keep the sun, and her unruly curls, off her face; but she finds surprisingly little ire left for his assertion that it looks "fetching" on her, nor his tendency to cross standard boundaries of physical contact. Perhaps, she thinks, she's become accustomed to these ways of his, his strange compliments and abrupt half-caresses, though she cannot decide what to make of them.

"How did you come by this little souvenir, again?" he inquires. "Got yourself grabbed from behind, is that it?"

She nods reluctantly.

"Thought as much. Well, no matter." Letting her go, he stands in a single fluid motion. "You just need more practice at it, I suppose."

The smile he tosses her is pure mischief as he stretches out a hand in invitation.

Always a bad sign. "Practice at what, exactly, Jack?"

"Why, being grabbed from behind, of course."

"Jack!"

"Naturally, the lady is scandalized, and I've not so much as cast a wink her way," he complains bitterly to sea and sky. "No, Miss Priss, I am merely offering to tutor you in the art of evading scoundrels and pickpockets who mean to slit your throat, or worse. At the very least, it would greatly benefit my of late much-eroded peace of mind. Savvy?"

He beckons impatiently; somewhat chastened, she allows him to pull her to her feet.

"Excellent. I promise to behave myself to the best of my ability." She opens her mouth to express her doubts regarding this ability, but he shakes his finger at her. "Hush. Now pay attention."

He outlines a few simple self-defense principles and techniques, taking her wrist to demonstrate the various points where she might apply pressure to loosen an opponent's grip or, in one instance, to cause excruciating pain. His touch remains light, brief and carefully businesslike; apparently he has taken his promise seriously.

"Right," he says, after she's able to repeat the basics of his lesson back to him with passable retention. "Let's have a go, then. Turn round."

"What, now?" Several crew members have paused in their work, she notices, to surreptitiously observe their captain's exchange with the "high-bred lady," as she's occasionally heard them refer to her despite her increasingly un-ladylike clothing and appearance.

"Aye, now," he answers brusquely. "Practice, m'dear, makes perfect." He motions her to face away from him. "Go on then, I haven't got all day."

She complies, not without a sense of trepidation; which is borne out an instant later when he seizes her from behind, pinning her arms against her side. She struggles, to no avail.

"Ah, you see? You're panicking," he says, his breath warm on her ear, body pressed against her back, and she recalls unexpectedly a moment on a Navy dock years ago: _It is Elizabeth, isn't it?_ "All of that wriggling about, while...entertaining for me, is of no benefit to you at all." He ignores her indignant exclamation. "Remember what I've just shown you, now. Thumbs, elbows, instep-- _Bloody sodding hell!_ " Her elbow drives sharply into his ribs, and he releases her abruptly; she looks round to find him doubled over, clutching his side and swearing profusely.

"Oh!" She rushes to his side, hand over her mouth--half in consternation, half to hide an unkind giggle at his expression. "I'm so sorry, Jack. I'd forgotten about your injury--"

"It's quite all right," he says, breathless. "So had I."

Elizabeth cannot resist. "That's not to say I don't think you deserved it."

"I may have, at that." He straightens up, hissing slightly between clenched teeth; his face has gone alarmingly white beneath his tan.

"Are you sure you're all right? Perhaps I should have a look at the dressing..."

"That won't be necessary," and he plucks her fingers from his shirt. "God's teeth, woman, don't fuss."

"But the bandage should be changed every day to--"

"Sod off," he growls; surprised, she takes a step backwards. "You will note that I have managed to survive perfectly well up to this point, even in the absence of feminine meddling."

"They do say that God watches over fools and children," she retorts, stung. "I don't recall you putting up any objection to being cozened a few days ago, when you lay flat on your back and beguiled me into bringing up your grog like a common maid."

" _Beguiled_ you, darling?" His emphasis drips incredulity. "I merely requested a favor, and you deigned, in your customary haughty way, to provide it." He stops, then adds, near-inaudibly, "The circumstances were rather...different at that time, I might add."

Mystified, she stares at him; as usual, she cannot read the meaning in his dark eyes. She thinks, though, that she sees his Adam's apple bob, as if he has swallowed the rest of a difficult speech. In the heavy silence between them, the billow of canvas and snap of taut stays fills the air.

Jack lifts his head, breaking eye contact, and inhales deeply; she can see some of the tension drain from the line of his shoulders. "Finally..."

The strengthening breeze brings the _Pearl_ to life around them; it brushes lightly across Elizabeth's cheek, relieving the heat of exertion and pique that has risen there, though the air itself is warm, almost hot. Around the ship, the glassy sea wrinkles, small waves breaking here and there under the wind. Elizabeth stands still, watching Jack as he climbs to the bridge steps to speak with Anamaria. He does not glance back; but she could swear his quartermaster's gaze meets her own as the two confer at the helm. Ana's expression seems to consist of equal parts cool amusement and grave concern.

Elizabeth turns away, picking up the coil of rope she'd been working with, now neatly ship-shape courtesy of Captain Sparrow. She examines it idly, until she realizes she's seeking clues not to the formation of the knots themselves, but to the mind of the man who shaped them. _What has come over me?_ she reproves herself. She should be thinking of her husband just now, her honest, steady, forthright Will Turner, who always says exactly what he means and wears his every emotion plainly on his face for her to read at leisure.

She fixes her attention on the Western horizon, where the sun has begun to drop rapidly towards the water. Somewhere out there, Will is waiting for her. She shuts her thoughts against any possibility except that in which he is safe and alive and ready to forgive her.

But she cannot shut out the memory of that untranslatable look she'd glimpsed in Jack Sparrow's eyes; though she's not sure that she wants to know its meaning, after all.

* * *

"She's not here." Commodore Norrington's curt tone disguises the utter weariness that overwhelms him as he steps from the skiff to the deck of the _Dauntless_. "We have no excuse to tarry."

Lieutenant Hayes nods and turns to the crew. Without further ado, Norrington walks straight through the small knot of officers and soldiers on the quarterdeck, scattering them in his wake; he hears the lieutenant's commands taken up by the rougher voice of the boatswain and the answering shouts of the men. Hayes might make a good Navy man yet. The midshipman is wise enough at least to see that his Commodore has no more patience or will left tonight to deal with the technicalities of getting the _Dauntless_ under way. In fact, Norrington wishes above all things to shut himself into the drab solitude of his cabin and forget all the troubling events of the last few days, perhaps with a drop or two of laudanum added to his wine to ease his headache, and his conscience.

He's taken only a few steps toward this end, however, when his path is blocked by the considerable bulk of Turner's first mate. Feet planted wide, brawny arms crossed over his chest, the big black-bearded Scotsman confronts Norrington, chin jutting belligerently.

"Ain't ye forgettin' somethin'?" he growls. "Or mayhaps, some _one_?"

"I beg your pardon." But Norrington's heart sinks; he knows what the man's after, knows the question he must ask is the one for which the Commodore least wishes to find an answer.

Sure enough, the man points towards the starboard bow to where the village of Navidad is sliding past, rapidly turning to rocky cliffs as the _Dauntless_ tacks about to face the harbor mouth. "'Tis a hard soul would abandon a mate to the hands of a foe like that blackguard back there." Behind him, the grubby remnants of Will Turner's crew stir, muttering agreement.

The Commodore sets his jaw. "I had no choice. Now stand down, man."

"Ye mean to leave him, then?"

"Hayes," Norrington snaps. "Remove him."

Hayes moves forward, but the privateer holds his ground. "Ye wait just one minute, son." He speaks with such authority that the cadet pauses. "Master Norrington, ye know young Cap'n Turner, do ye not?"

"I know him." Something in his challenger's tone has prevented him at the moment from signaling Hayes to march this man and his associates down to the brig. He hates to punish a sailor for loyalty and love for his captain, and it would seem a rude irony to a prisoner so recently liberated.

"Friend of your'n, might ye say?"

 _You might say that._ Norrington is surprised by the thought, and made rather more uncomfortable by it. He gestures irritably for the man to continue. But the huge Scotsman says nothing more; glowering, arms still crossed, he steps aside only a fraction so that the Commodore must brush past him on his way to the forecastle.

The _Dauntless_ is, of course, outgunned and outnumbered, a lone Naval ship in hostile waters under the dubious auspices of a cease-fire agreement with that Spanish bastard. He has his officers and his crew to consider, and he cannot justify risking so many men to rescue one civilian; one civilian who volunteered his own person in ransom.

_...for the sake of a prisoner who was not in fact released, and possibly never held._

Norrington slams his cabin door shut behind him; an uncharacteristic expression of frustration that will later, he knows, embarrass him.

All of this for the lovely, thrice-damnable Miss Swann.

_\--Turner._

Poor bugger. He flings himself into the room's single chair. Will never had a choice, nor a chance against her, no more than Norrington himself. And here they still were, chasing after the very same damsel, as always; committing the same ridiculous, even indefensible acts in her name and the name of heroism, and compromising their own interests in the process. The lady's welfare at all costs, though the lady herself consistently placed that costly welfare at deadly risk on a whim and a fancy.

For Will, that whim would likely cost him his life.

Norrington rises abruptly. He finds he's suddenly moved to issue a few more orders, before he can rest.

* * *

Twilight has already begun to deepen when Nichole D'Bouvoire finds the mark her plan requires. He is young, homely, and proud of his very first post with the Spanish Navy--on _La Venganza._ Nichole tucks her flaming, unbound hair back behind one ear, leans in very close to him, and tells him in disarmingly parochial Spanish that she has always wanted to set foot on a real Navy man o'war. She strokes his bicep while she says this.

It's really far too easy; almost disappointingly so.

As he leads her up the gangplank, arm tight about her waist, her other hand slips down to feel the pouch hidden among her skirts, to trace the outline of the tiny vial of belladonna secreted within. Not to make sure that it's still there so much as for the satisfaction of it.

When the young cadet's mates, on deck for guard duty and envious of the rest of the crew's night off on the town, begin to pass a jug of grog around, she pretends to become extremely tipsy. When the jug runs out, she offers to decant more from the galley, if someone will show her where it might be.

The men are snoring before they have a chance to realize that she has not returned. Meanwhile, Nichole decides she rather likes the young cadet who did her the favor of getting her on Morena's ship in the first place, despite the fact that he sleepily attempts to get his hand up her skirt as soon as they are alone in the darkness of the hold. It is only because of this irrational affection that the tiny dart she jabs into his neck, as she giggles and slaps at him playfully, bears a substance formulated to produce almost instant heart failure in lieu of complete waking paralysis.

She catches the dead weight of him before he falls, and lowers his limp body gently to the deck, seating him against the hull as if asleep. The skirts he was so eager to bypass follow him onto the dirty boards; after a pause for consideration, she wads them up and tucks them under his lolling head, smiling at her own whimsy.

A few moments later, a slim, black-trousered figure slips soundlessly down the hatch into the bowels of _La Venganza._

Time now to play the waiting game, again. It's not her favorite; but it will do, for a little while. The risk, of course, is that he will not come tonight. But Nichole is most certainly a gambling woman, and her grand plan is riding on these odds. She likes it that way. Makes things more interesting.

None of which, however, means she doesn't have an alternate method in mind to beat the odds, should she, by some strange chance, "lose."

* * *


	23. Flame and Tinder

**Chapter XXII  
Flame and Tinder **

 

 _Drink to me only with thine eyes  
and I will pledge with mine.  
Or leave a kiss within the cup  
and I'll not ask for wine.  
_ \-- "Drink to Me Only with Thine Eyes"

 _Fire in the cabin, fire in the hold  
fire in the strong room melting the gold  
fire, fire, fire down below._  
\-- "Fire Down Below"

* * *

The approaching footsteps are slow, perhaps reluctant

At the wheel of the Black Pearl, Jack Sparrow does not look around. He's fairly certain he knows to whom they belong. In fact, Elizabeth Turner seems to be everywhere of late. Even in his few hours of sleep, she is there, a honey-maned succubus invading his dreams and waking him utterly unsatisfied. He thinks she's in his blood, too, like a fever. And the _Pearl_ has somehow become a much smaller ship than he had thought, because he cannot seem to avoid her. Worse, he finds himself seeking her out when she is not beside him.

The footsteps pause several meters behind him. He turns, finally, to find her studying him, as if he's written in a language she doesn't quite know how to read.

"Yes, Mrs. Turner?" He uses her married name deliberately because he's noticed it seems to rattle her. Just trying to level the field a bit, gain back some lost advantage.

"Ana asked if I'd bring you up your supper," she says, and if she reacts to his subtle dig she hides it well, although she's perhaps helped by the fact that the sun has set and the light is fading quickly. She holds out a tray.

He raises an eyebrow. "Ana did, now?" If he didn't know better, he'd think that constituted meddling on the quartermaster's part. Taking the tray from her, he views it with little interest: bread, still soft as they're only two days out from port, and a hunk of cured meat. "Didn't happen to send up any grog, did she?"

The unexpected shadow of a grin crosses Elizabeth's face. "I'm under express orders to make sure you eat some solid food first, Captain."

"Bloody women," he growls. "Gangin' up on me now, are you? You make a fine pair. Don't you know I'm the one gives orders around this damn ship?"

With a toss of her head, she settles herself against the rail, folds her arms, and waits.

"I should learn to listen to Mr. Gibbs," he grumbles through a mouthful of bread.

"Aye, 'tis the worst sort of luck to 'ave two women aboard," she answers in a passable imitation of the first mate's gruff brogue.

He nearly chokes, and winces as his cough pulls at the wound on his ribs. "A wise man, is Mr. Gibbs," he says darkly, when he recovers.

"Jack, is that cut bothering you?" She's giving him that concerned look again.

Well, sod it all, if she wants to play nursemaid, he may as well play the damn injury for all it's worth. "Just a bit sore from earlier," he says mournfully, watching her out of the corner of his eye.

"I know," she says, contrite. "I'm sorry, Jack. I didn't mean to hurt you."

He snorts. "Now, that's a likely tale."

"Not that much, anyhow," she adds, with a small smile.

"It's all right. It really only hurts when I breathe." Then he winks at her. "If you're very good, I'll let you have a look at the damage later."

"Jack!" But she's laughing at him in the half-light.

"Said, I do believe, in the tones of one who protests too much by half." He frowns. "All things considered, you're very light-hearted tonight, Madame. I find it makes me decidedly uneasy."

Her cheeks darken; the blush is obvious even in the shadows. She holds up a small flask. "I had a sip or two before I came up the stairs," she confesses.

"I knew it!" He reaches for it; she tucks the rum behind her back and sidesteps easily out of the way.

"You haven't finished your supper."

"Wench! Very well then." He holds out the remaining half-loaf. "I could use some assistance."

She sighs, accepting a small piece. "I hope Ana's not watching."

"Aye, but perhaps she should be force-feeding you as well. You're looking a bit skinny these days, love."

She scowls a little at this, but nibbles on a corner of her bread obligingly. "Isn't it unusual for a ship's captain to eat the same rations as the crew?" she inquires.

"Aye, but you see, this is an unusual ship," he informs her, patting the railing of the Pearl, "and quite the unusual crew," he points toward Anamaria and Mr. Cotton, whose parrot appears to be giving the quartermaster what-for down on the main deck. "And I myself am a rather unusual captain. When we feast, we feast together; when we run low on provisions, I go hungry too, same as them. Good for morale, you know."

"I wouldn't have taken you for a populist, Jack." The hand with the flask has fallen to her side as she regards him with interest.

"'M not. The word, m'dear, is--" He gestures extravagantly, distracting her, and grasps her slender wrist with his other hand, forcing her to relinquish the bottle. " _Pirate_."

She throws the rest of her bread at him; he ducks, and they both watch the crust go flying over the railing into the ocean. "Rank opportunist is more like it!"

"And you're a bad shot," he says agreeably, taking a swig of rum.

"Lend me your pistol, and I'll show you a bad shot."

"No thank you, darling. You've injured me quite enough today."

"You're going to keep bringing that up, aren't you?"

"Rank opportunist, remember?" He shrugs. "Anyway, you brought it up first."

She rolls her eyes. "In all seriousness, I do want to make sure there's no danger of that wound going septic."

"I know you do, love," he grins.

She makes an exasperated noise; but she does not flounce away, only favors him with what is most certainly intended to be a wilting glare, lips pressed together and indignant eyes all a-flash, a lovely sight indeed. Jack chuckles and swallows more rum, enjoying the slow burn. "So tell me, Elizabeth," he says after a moment. "Am I really so frightening that you had to get liquored up before you could speak to me?"

"I am not 'all liquored up,'" she retorts instantly. "I had a mouthful, that is all. And that was for patience, not courage."

"Too bad," he sighs. "I do have a reputation to uphold."

Her jaw tightens; she turns her head away from him, looking over the rail at the choppy waves below. "And I have all but destroyed my own." She says it low, and not without some bitterness.

"Aye, but it's not as bad as all that." Sensing the return of her anxiety, he casts about for some way to alleviate it, and comes up empty. "At least you're not bored," he offers.

"But I am still not free." Yes, there is the bitterness at full strength. Her chin is high, but he thinks he sees it tremble.

It always catches him off-guard how quickly she moves from laughter to fury, anger to distress, stubborn strength to frightening vulnerability. The vulnerability especially startles him; and it is the extent to which it moves him that is most disquieting.

"Come here," he says abruptly, putting aside the empty dinner tray.

She steps towards him, then hesitates.

"I promise I won't bite, love." He finds himself speaking quite softly, as if gentling a wild creature. "I just want to show you something."

And to his amazement, she comes to him, standing close by him at the _Pearl's_ helm. He glances upwards at the canvas; the wind is stiff, but steady enough. She's staring at him quizzically, and his first goal seems to be attained: she's forgotten her troubled thoughts, at least for now.

"Would you like to sail her?"

Her eyes widen; she glances down at the wheel, then up at him again. "You mean--?"

"Aye. Go on, take it." He moves back to give her room as she lays her hands on the well-worn oak, and hears her exclamation as a particularly strong gust pulls the ship a quarter of a point north. "Steady, now..." Reaching around her, he places his hands on hers to steer them back on course, on his guard in case she decides to use her elbow on his ribs again.

But instead she turns to him with an expression he's never quite seen on those pretty features before. It sends an odd thrill through him.

Elizabeth Turner looks... _happy_.

"She's really something, ain't she?" He whispers the words, afraid to break the spell.

"It's as if she were a living thing..."

"Aye, that's right." He's pleased and surprised that she understands that. Even Ana treats the _Pearl_ like a thing...a fine thing, but an object nonetheless, always a means to an end. "The _Pearl_ 's got a soul, same as any human woman."

"Now I know why you talk to her," she says. "She's not just a keel and a hull and a deck and some sails." The last is spoken in a sing-song fashion.

"That's what a ship needs," he answers, laughing. "But what the _Black Pearl_ really is--"

"Freedom," she breathes, and then, eyes alight with mischief, adds, "I didn't think you remembered most of that night, Jack, let alone that particular conversation."

"How could I forget the first night we ever spent together?"

"You drank a lot of rum," she says tartly; once again, she doesn't take his bait. _She's learning._

Her head, he notes, rests lightly against his cheek; she's leaning into him ever so slightly.

"At the encouragement of a certain wily lass," he says into her ear, and notes how she can't quite hide her shiver.

Her voice is almost steady. "You would have soused yourself stupid with or without me, and you know it."

"Only more so without you, darling. No one to set fire to my supply, you see."

"And without me, you would not have lived to tell the tale," she says, smug. "I only did what was necessary."

"Aye, necessary to further your own ends," he mutters, and catches her elbow deftly as it darts for his ribs. He's learning, too.

"Ungrateful wretch." But she says it without rancor.

"Peas in a pod, love," he reminds her, and lets his fingers slide casually down her arm to cover her small white hand with his brown, weathered one, guiding both back to the helm. He means the light touch for a caress, and she knows it; he can feel her go very still against him, hear her quick inhalation.

"I'm afraid we've drifted somewhat off course," she says, breathless.

"A bit too far westwards again, I believe," he murmurs, and then wonders if she was referring to the _Black Pearl_ , after all. "Steer her portside a little. Aye, that's more like it."

An almost companionable silence falls between them as they negotiate wind and wave; the _Pearl_ noses amiably back towards the southwest, steady under their joined hands.

Finally Elizabeth stirs. "Jack?"

"Hmm?"

"Can I ask you a question?"

He blows at an errant strand of honey-colored hair that has escaped from her braid to tickle his nose. "Ask away."

"Who were you, before?"

"Before...?" It takes him a second or two to realize what she's talking about. He glances at her quickly. "What manner of question is that? Before what?"

"Before you were Captain of the _Black Pearl_ ," she insists."Before you became a pirate."

Mouth grazing her jaw, he says, "Foolish lass. I've always been a pirate."

A half-breath, held; and she moves her head away. "C'mon, Jack. You weren't born on the high seas, surely."

The moment has been lost. He drops his arms, breaking their half-embrace. "And what makes you so sure?" Then he sighs as she skewers him with a stern look. "Nobody, lass, I was nobody, really. Merely a callow lad with the sea in my blood, a compass that didn't point north, and a bee in my bonnet over a hidden treasure should have never been found at all."

"The treasure of Isle de Muerta," she says, tone faintly triumphant; pleased, perhaps, by his grudging capitulation. "And the compass that guided you there...Wherever did you find such a thing?"

"Family heirloom," he says shortly.

The full lips part a little at this; he sees her absorb the implications of the statement. But all she says is, "To hear Mr. Gibbs tell it, you won it off the Devil himself in a dice game."

She's tucking the obvious questions away for later, most likely. _Wonderful_.

"Sorry to disappoint," he growls. "Although I must say, I much prefer old Gibbs' version."

"Why?" Her fingers have gone lax on the wheel, he notes disapprovingly; she's watching him closely, too much so for comfort. "I daresay I'd find the truth more interesting."

"Hm." He fixes his attention on the business of steering that she is neglecting so thoroughly. "Why, pray tell, the sudden preoccupation with my personal history?"

"No reason," she answers, shrugging. "It's just that none of the stories report anything about the earlier days of your career. Anything _credible_ , that is..." She drops him a mocking curtsy, retrieves his abandoned dinner-tray. "But as it appears to be quite the grand secret, Captain, and likely a disreputable one at that, I believe I'll leave you to it."

His curiosity bests him, two out of three. "What _do_ the stories say, then? I don't believe I've heard the latest versions."

Elizabeth smiles. "Goodnight, Jack Sparrow."And she trips smartly away from him and down the steps to the main deck, for all the world as if she's certain she's won this round.

In fact, he rather thinks she has. His first, alarming instinct in response to her interrogation was to answer truthfully about a past known by almost no one now alive. A past he himself barely thinks of anymore; when he does, it is the past of another man's memories, another life under a different name. A life long over.

Truth be told, there had been no Jack Sparrow, before the Black Pearl.

_Nobody, indeed._

He glances back, and catches sight of Elizabeth Turner in a pool of lantern-light, chatting with Anamaria. They're conspiring against him again, he's sure. He wonders if it is only the gleam of her hair, golden even in the fickle illumination of the oil lamps, that makes her stand out so plainly among the rest despite her boyish figure and man's clothing. But no, it's much more than that, he decides; it's in the proud angle of her head, in how she carries herself, with an unconscious and stately grace, with the unmistakable posture of a well-trained lady. Her stride has lengthened as she grows more used to walking freely, unfettered by petticoats, but her gait still carries the measured precision of breeding, the surety of entitlement.

_She doesn't belong here._

Maybe Nichole had the right of it, after all. But she could belong, he thinks, imagining Elizabeth cutlass in hand, eyes flashing, charging headlong into battle like an Amazon. Followed instantly by a nightmare image of her slim body in his arms, his hands slick with her blood, her eyes dulled by pain, their fire flickering, fading...dying.

He shakes his head, shaking off the awful vision and the deep panic it stirs in him, and faces forward, resolute. Of course she must go back to Will.

Some treasure is too valuable to be reckoned or risked.

* * *

The dark, hulking shape of _La Venganza_ lies quietly in the waters of the harbor, patiently awaiting its Captain's return.

Too dark; too quiet. Morena curses virulently, steps quickening as his boots hit the gangplank. He's been in a good mood tonight, thanks to the success of the day's events. Until now.

"Light," he snaps, and one of his personal guard hurries up behind him with a lantern. A cursory survey of the deck confirms his suspicions. The men he left on watch sprawl, snoring one and all, near the forecastle.

"And with a prisoner aboard, no less. Idiots." He jerks his head in their direction. " _Alferez_ Bernal, wake those worthless bastards for me, if you please."

Bernal strides across to the sleeping _cabos,_ aims a swift kick to the ribs of the nearest man. "On your feet, _perros_!"

The soldier rolls over, grunts, then snores again. The lieutenant bends to pick up an empty liquor flask. "Dead drunk, _Capitan_ ," he says with disgust.

"Let them lie, then." Morena smiles grimly. "We can deal with them later." They've proved little use as servicemen, but they'll make a fine example for the rest of the men in the morning. Morena will shoot them himself. No reason to waste time on a court-martial.

The two junior officers who have followed Morena and Bernal aboard ship exchange glances that are half smug disdain for the offending _cabos_ , half consternation at their approaching fate. Morena knows they're privately thanking God that they are not in their fellow soldiers' shoes. It's exactly the mix of emotion the Captain strives to elicit in his troops. Shock and awe. _Fear begets respect._

"You gentlemen keep watch," he orders them. "I'll tend to the prisoner myself." Another flash of comprehension; they murmur nervous assent. They know the real meaning of those words. Vasquez, the youngest officer, busies himself lighting the lamps that have burnt out, while Morena relieves Bernal of the lantern and heads below without further delay.

He licks his lips in anticipation. He's been waiting for this moment for hours, through a dull formal supper at Don Castilano's plantation and a duller officer's meeting at the garrison.

Opening the lower hatch, he descends to the brig, a clean handkerchief over mouth and nose to combat the smell. The stench of human filth, and fear. He'll become accustomed to it in a second. He always does.

His prisoner is lying very still in the second cell from the stairs, facing away, apparently unconscious. The straw is soiled; the cell's inhabitant has obviously been quite sick, quite recently. Morena considers the motionless form for a minute before hanging up the lantern and lifting the heavy bar to unlock the door.

At the creak of iron on iron, the prisoner stirs.

 _"Buenas tardes, mi amigo_."

The man jerks violently at the sound of Morena's voice, attempts to lunge to his feet. The shackles at his hands and ankles stop him halfway. On his knees, he strains toward the captain, a vicious dog on a short chain.

"Morena." His eyes glitter wildly; his hair is matted with blood and straw. Bernal must have hit him harder than Morena had thought. "You scum." He spits at Morena's feet, narrowly missing his boot. "You filthy bastard--"

But he's cut off by the fist that smashes into his jaw, knocking his head back. "My dear Senor Turner," Morena purrs. "Where are your manners?"

Turner's features are contorted with fury and pain. "With your _honor_ ," he snarls. "What have you done with my wife?"

"Ah. Still whining for your bitch, I see..." May as well let the whelp believe this _puta_ of his is dead. "She is beyond your reach, _mi amigo_. Forever."

He watches the import of this sink in, slowly draining the color from the youth's tan face. Turner spits blood this time. "Goddamn you," he whispers.

"I find that when a bitch outlives her usefulness, it is best to have her put down." Morena smiles, fingering the hilt of his knife. "A mercy, truly."

The whelp makes an anguished noise; Morena reaches out swiftly and grabs him by the hair, pushing the blade of the knife against his enemy's jugular vein. "An interesting decision," he murmurs. "I must choose the greater of two pleasures, as it were. Shall I cut your throat tonight, and have the satisfaction of killing you myself, or send you to hang tomorrow, for _all_ to see?"

Turner gives him a look that mingles pure hatred and despair. "Go ahead," he grates out. "Do it now. And take what honor there is from the murder of a defenseless man."

Morena sighs, straightening. "You are right, of course. What a pity--" But as he sheaths the knife, he sees Turner's eyes widen, his glance darting to a point behind him and to his right. Morena turns, drawing his knife again, to see a dark-clad figure emerging from the shadows behind the stairs--

"We meet again, Captain," says the figure, coolly. She pushes the hood of her cloak back to reveal brilliant red hair and a very dangerous smile. The face of a ghost...

He opens his mouth to call the guards, but finds his voice is frozen in his throat. He stares at her in shock.

"I do hope you remember me," says Nichole D'Bouvoire.

* * *

"Nought but a few men guardin' her," says Gabriel McBride. He shuts the spyglass with a decisive snap. "Ain't expectin' trouble, it seems. Shouldna be dreadful hard to overcome them, Master Commodore."

"Perhaps not." Norrington, crouching with a small group of the _Lady Swann_ 's healthiest crewmembers on the shrub-lined ridge above the village of Navidad, frowns slightly. Beneath them at the moonlit docks floats _La Venganza_ , deceptively peaceful for some minutes now since its Captain vanished below deck. The _Dauntless_ is moored a few miles down the shore on the other side of the ridge, out of sight of town and garrison. No need to endanger the King's property, or the King's men, on a harebrained rescue mission such as this.

"The trick is to do it without anyone raising the alarm," the Commodore says. "The rest of Morena's men will be in the village, or at the farthest, in the garrison," and he nods across the harbor at the small fortress. "You must remember, it's a long march back to the _Dauntless_ , and there is no telling in what condition we might find Mr. Turner."

"'Tis true." The Scotsman scratches his beard thoughtfully. "Unless..." He chuckles softly. "What say ye we _sail_ her out of the harbor, sir? Be faster than walkin' home."

Norrington rocks back a little on his heels, looking McBride over with new respect. "An escape by sea," he says slowly. "I believe that could work. Are we enough to man her?"

"Aye. She ain't but the size of the _Lady_." He casts a longing glance to where the other ship lies at anchor, lashed and ragged. "Though if I had me druthers, I'd take _her_ instead...a finer mistress than yon black hull."

"Yes, well, I'm afraid that can't be helped," Norrington says. "Though she _is_ a fine ship, to be sure--"

"Sir," says one of the men behind them, urgently. Billy Castle, Norrington thinks his name is. "'Scuse the interruption, but--what be that, yonder?"

The Commodore glances back at _La Venganza_. "Damn and blast," he mutters. Dark smoke is pouring out of the ship's portside windows. "McBride, the glass, if you wouldn't mind--"

The other man hands it over, startled. "What in the blazes..."

Norrington can see the Spanish guards on the main deck shouting to each other in pantomime, waving their hands frantically. The portholes emit an ominous, fitful glow. And he notices something else, something extremely odd.

Someone has cut the _Venganza_ 's moorings, and the vessel is sliding gently away from the docks on the tide.

The Commodore lowers the glass, dread battling with hope.

"Holy Mother of God," breathes Billy Castle.

And as they watch, gaping, _La Venganza_ blooms into flame, a great fireball tearing the ship apart from the inside. A second later, the noise of the explosion echoes across the still water, followed by shouts in the village. The ruin of the hull burns, sinking slowly in a glowing fume of smoke and steam.

McBride removes his cap. His expression is one of stunned dismay. "Lads," he says quietly, "one way or t'other--I think it be a bit late to rescue our Master Will."


	24. Smoke on the Wind

**Chapter XXIII  
Smoke on the Wind  
**

_She had sweethearts a-plenty  
and men of high degree  
but no man but Jack the sailor  
her true love e'er could be._

-Jackaroe

_Then three times 'round went our gallant ship  
and three times 'round went she  
and the third time that she went 'round  
she sank to the bottom of the sea._

-The Mermaid

* * *

Anamaria sits with her back against the mast, long legs stretched in front of her, ankles crossed. Her eyes, intent on the tumbling dice, glitter button-black in the lamplight. "Aha."

Cotton's parrot squawks disparagingly; the mute is shaking his head.

"Eleven." Ana pulls the battered hat that's been acting as their pot towards herself, and empties the contents into the purse at her belt. "Again." She smiles and leans back against the mainmast, puffing on her carved tobacco pipe, satisfied.

"'Tis unnatural." Mr. Gibbs glowers at the quartermaster, nips a mouthful from his hip flask. "Uncanny. 'Sall I'm saying."

Ana ignores him. "'Tis your throw, Mistress Turner," she says serenely, and hands Elizabeth the dice. The other players, grumbling but good-natured, ante up once more.

Elizabeth, seated cross-legged near the starboard rail, adds her own coin to Jack Sparrow's second-favorite hat, and accepts the flask when Gibbs passes it her way. The liquor scorches her throat, pools hot in her belly. She bites her lip and gives the two cubes of bone a shake. Trying not to wonder what manner of bone they might be, she looks up; into Jack's kohl-shadowed glance.

He's lounging opposite her in the small circle, one leg bent under him, one knee pulled up toward his chest in an indolent pose; he lifts the flask that Ana has waved away and winks, a wordless toast. With a little gasp, she tears her gaze away. The dice rattle on the _Pearl'_ s boards, coming to rest near Jack's boot.

He moves languidly to examine them. "Snake eyes." His own eyes gleam, laughing at her.

"Oh, no!"

"Oh yes." He tilts the surfaces of the dice towards her. "Sorry, darling. Double your coin."

How has she been finagled into joining this rogue's game? Ladies don't gamble. But of course, she hasn't been much of a lady lately. And the game is rather thrilling, letting one's fortune ride in the hands of Luck, and Fate. Jack certainly seems to enjoy it. Then again, Lady Luck seems to favor him.

"You distracted me," she protests, then laughs with the rest of them, fishing another shilling out of the small cloth bag she's taken to wearing on a string round her neck for safekeeping. But as she tucks the coin-purse back inside her shirt, she once again catches him studying her. She thinks of his beard-roughened cheek against hers a few hours earlier, and feels a flush wash over her collarbone, where her skin is exposed by an unfastened top button that she knows has not escaped his notice.

Ana is watching this exchange as intently as she watched her throw moments ago, dark eyes narrowed. The parrot clucks in a speculative way. Mr. Gibbs clears his throat and retrieves the dice, casting what might be interpreted as a quelling look towards Jack, who merely smiles and takes another swig of rum.

_They know_ , Elizabeth realizes suddenly. Ana probably guessed at it that first day out from Tortuga. Gibbs, who remembers her as a young girl crossing from England into a new life, appears to harbor some vague fatherly concern for her. Cotton just looks faintly amused. _Is it that obvious?_

Perhaps it is the fault of the alcohol, but she finds to her surprise that right now, she doesn't mind terribly that the crew suspects the truth. Let them speculate. They are pirates, after all; they're not the ladies of Port Royal simpering to her face and judging her behind her back.

She focuses on the game again in time to see Gibbs roll a five and mutter something not quite audible about women and luck as the throw passes to Jack. The Captain gives the dice a swift shake, and tosses them with a magician's lightning wrist flick. Double sixes.

Reaching into the hat, he withdraws Elizabeth's shilling. "Still warm," he observes, eyebrow lifted, and those gold teeth flash as he does something complicated with his right hand. He opens his empty palm, makes a show of searching for the vanished coin, and gives Elizabeth a reproachful look as if she's the one who caused it to go missing; then he shrugs, pretending to reach for a replacement from the pot.

She slaps his hand away playfully. "Jack! That's cheating."

"Bloody show-off," Ana says, but the tobacco she's smoking seems to have mellowed her usual acerbity.

"Jus' keeping in practice-"

But his unrepentant drawl is interrupted by a shout from the crow's nest.

"Cap'n! Look! Yonder, t' the west!"

They all hear the distant, deep _boom_ clearly over the water. Jack is on his feet in one smooth motion, the easy languor vanished from his body as completely as that coin from his hand. He pulls himself up on the rail, leaning far out to peer forward past the rigging. When he drops back to the deck and turns round, Elizabeth sees his expression. She leaps up.

"Jack? What is it? Jack!" But he has stalked past her without a word, is scaling the mainmast with all the nimble agility of a monkey and the fluid grace of a cat. She stares up at his rapidly climbing form for a second before flinging herself to the rail.

The horizon to the west glows, sunset-orange. But the sun has long sunk away, its light all but gone from a sky patched by ragged dark clouds that alternately obscure and reveal the stars. Then the glow flickers, widens a bit; a gust of wind carries the stink of burning. A sick foreboding rises in Elizabeth's stomach, making her regret the rum and sailor's fare she's swallowed this evening.

"What is it, Mr. Gibbs?" she asks, as the first mate joins her at her vantage point.

"Something bad, Miss Elizabeth," he answers, echoing her thoughts. "Something devilish bad, I reckon."

"Helmsman!" Jack's voice rings out from above, strained and sharpened by something that sounds almost like fear. "Swing her round, mate!" The coordinates that follow are lost to Elizabeth, but the young steersman must have caught them; the _Black Pearl_ jerks starboard, the air filling suddenly with the protesting creak of lines pulled taut. Ana lopes forward to the helm; Gibbs hollers urgent orders. Men spring to action around them, loosening and re-lashing lines, clambering upwards to adjust the snapping sails.

Alarmed, Elizabeth tilts her head back, attempting to catch another glimpse of Captain Sparrow, but the crow's nest sits nearly directly above her and she cannot see him from such an angle. _Why turn aside now?_ She digs her nails into the wood, knuckles whitening. Every minute wasted is another minute in which Will might be lost forever. If Jack, ever the opportunist, is changing course in order to seek plunder, or is on the track of some other harebrained adventure-- If this detour causes them to be too late--

A hand falls on her shoulder; she jumps and turns. Jack's features are creased with...weariness? Regret? Concern?

"Jack, why? Where are we going?"

He nods toward the fitful glow on the horizon. The _Pearl_ is drawing rapidly closer now, so that the dark smudge below it is recognizable as land, and the spreading dark smudge above it is obviously smoke.

"The _Lady Swann_ ," he says, "lies in that harbor, yonder."

His words grip her heart like a vise, tightening painfully.

_Will._ She feels herself sway, gropes for the rail.

Jack swears softly. Then his arms go around her, gathering her in a fierce embrace. "Don't look like that, Elizabeth, my darling," he says into her hair. "We'll find him, love. You hear me? I'll find him for you..."

Elizabeth clings to him despite her startlement at his words, burying her face in the worn lapel of his jacket.

She doesn't think she's ready to let go.

* * *

The _Black Pearl_ drops anchor in the shadow of the steep cliff near the harbor's wide mouth, almost directly across the sound from the small garrison. Their arrival seems to have gone unnoticed. Any guards must be distracted by the tumult that has arisen down by the docks, by the grim tableau now lit by moonrise, the great smoking ship-carcass drifting low in the water. A few soldiers have rowed out to the ruined hulk, combing the debris for survivors. Clearly, something has gone unexpectedly and utterly wrong. Jack inspects the shore, and then the cliffs that hem them in, and sees nothing to indicate a raid or attack. The _Lady Swann_ rests dark and silent at the docks. And they have seen no other vessels on their approach, heard no cannonfire except that single powerful explosion.

Ana comes to lean her elbows on the rail beside him. "What d'you reckon happened here, Cap'n? Fire in the magazine?"

"Aye," he says. "Might be an accident. Some poor blighter lightin' a match in the wrong place at the wrong time..."

"Might be." Ana squints thoughtfully at the wreckage. "Or, mayhaps it was done on purpose." Lowering her voice, she adds, "She's the right size and the right design, Jack. Same as the vessel we seek."

"I thought she might be." Jack sighs, and pockets his glass.

"I'll have a boat readied for you," Ana says, guessing his intent in that occasionally preternatural way she has, and pads away sternwards, where a few terse orders soon have the men hurrying to deploy one of the dinghies. Jack, meanwhile, makes his way to the forecastle to retrieve his sword and extra shot for his pistol.

Elizabeth Turner ambushes him just outside his cabin door. "What's happening?" she demands sharply. "Are you going ashore?"

"Aye, love." He reaches for the door-latch, but she blocks his way adroitly, ignoring him when he gestures for her to step aside. She looks very pale in the moonlight, pale and small and extremely formidable, though her eyes are wide and dark with anxiety. He wants to pull her to him again, tell her she has nothing to worry about, promise her that he will make sure of that. But he's plagued by a rising premonition that if he said it, he'd be lying.

She says, "I'll come with you."

"Bollocks," he snaps. "You'll do no such thing. Would you move, please?"

She doesn't budge. "I won't sit about here waiting for news. I've done enough of that, these last three years...I'm coming."

"No, Elizabeth. There's no telling what we'll find." Or what he'll have to do, he adds silently. The last thing he wants is to have to pull off some incredibly stupid rescue mission on Mr. Turner's behalf while keeping the impulsive Mrs. Turner in check and out of harm's way. Also, he plans to be very much elsewhere for their ecstatic reunion scene. He wonders if there's a good tavern in this godforsaken village. "It's too dangerous, love."

"Goddamn you men," she cries. "Will is just the same. I'm a grown-up, Jack. Why can't I do as I please?"

"Because," Jack says, "you're a bloody stubborn little fool. And let me remind you, I am Captain of this ship. You'll do as I say, madam." He takes her firmly by the shoulders; she tries unsuccessfully to wrench away, but he moves her bodily aside, keeping her at arm's length as she strikes out at him with a little scream of frustration. He gives her a barely-gentle shake, his own frustration rising. "Would you like me to have you locked in the brig? Is that it? Because I can make arrangements."

She goes still, though her expression remains defiant. "You'll have to," she says. "You won't be able to stop me, otherwise."

There is steel in her voice; but it is the pleading look she gives him that defeats him, sorely tempted as he is to take her at her word and lock her up, out of his way and out of trouble. "Very well," he says, swallowing his irritation. "But you'll follow my orders on this venture, savvy? And don't do anything stupid."

"He is my husband, Jack. He's here on my account. It's my venture as much as yours," she says. "You don't need to protect me."

_Yes,_ he thinks. _I bloody well do._ He says instead, "We leave in ten minutes, m'lady. And don't forget that pretty knife of yours. You may need it before the night is through."

"Thank you, Jack," she says quietly.

"Don't mention it," he growls. "Just don't let me regret this." And he escapes into the darkness of his cabin, cursing himself for a fool. Try as he might, it seems he cannot refuse those eyes. Not since he was a young man has any woman wielded so much power over him.

At this rate, it could prove both their downfalls.

* * *

The tide has just begun to ebb, but Jack and Ana lash the beached rowboat to a sprawling mangrove root where the cliff's base meets a narrow strip of sand. "Just in case," Jack says, sounding distracted, when Elizabeth voices her doubt that they'll still be ashore when the tide comes in again. She looks from one grim, brown face to the other and falls silent, wondering if they know something she does not. She wouldn't put it past Jack to withhold information from her that he thought might upset her; especially considering his increasingly puzzling behavior towards her these past days at sea, marked as it is by an uneven, exasperated sort of tenderness. It is a characteristic she never would have suspected of him.

She glances sidelong at him, but can see no hint of the man that less than an hour ago held her in his arms and whispered endearments into her hair; there is no sign of tenderness now in the closed, chiseled features and shadowed eyes. His gesture is impatient, and she thinks better of asking what trouble is haunting him, the thing he's not telling her.

With a growing sense of unease, she follows Ana's sure steps down the beach, picking her way around crumbling outcroppings, rocks, and driftwood. She stumbles once and Jack, walking just behind and a little to her left, takes her by the elbow to steady her; the movement seems almost automatic, and his expression when she turns to thank him remains distant, unreadable.

He has been unusually taciturn since he emerged from his cabin back on the _Pearl_ in his shirtsleeves and handed her a large bundle, saying, "Wear this." Depositing a familiar-looking sailor's cap on top of the neatly folded cloth, he added, "This too."

The bundle turned out to be his own shabby, well-loved greatcoat. She began, "Jack, I couldn't possibly-"

"It'll hide your figure," he said curtly, and stalked away, leaving her with her arms full of salt-stained felt. After a moment, she wrapped the coat around her. It still held his warmth and, disconcertingly, his scent of spice, sweat and the sea. The cap is her own, the one she thought she'd left in their room at the "Faithful Bride." He must have picked it up and kept it for her, though she cannot fathom why.

They are passing directly opposite the shattered, smoldering hull that drifts, now more than half-sunken, in the bay. Elizabeth finds herself unable to look away from the embers burning fitfully out on the dark water, remembering another day of fire and death long ago, another ruined vessel, a boy salvaged miraculously from the wreck. That was a dank, mist-thick afternoon on the trackless Atlantic, all noises muffled eerily by fog, the red glow of flames and black jagged timbers rising unexpectedly out of indistinguishable greyness; this is a clear night, shapes blue-lit in sharp, almost surreal relief by a moon just beginning to wane. It's a different type of eeriness; she shivers, and prays that same lost if now grown boy is somewhere nearby, waiting for rescue in some lonely cell or ship's brig.

They will find him, she thinks; alive of course, just as Jack has promised. Her husband will walk blinking into the light, and the weight of guilty dread will lift from her shoulders somewhat. Having rescued him again she will take his hand, and they will return to Port Royal where she will take up the threads of her lonely existence as a sailor's wife with a will; and endeavor to pretend that she does not desire and has never tasted freedom, which is salty like the sea-air on the tongue, like Jack Sparrow's skin.

As for the man currently walking close by her side with a drunkard's over-careful gait, whose dark gaze pierces through her propriety, her pretenses and guarded pride so easily to expose the wild dreams she's tried to bury deep beneath--she will bid him a grave, polite farewell, and watch him sail away until he's vanished over her horizon. And hope the apothecary can provide laudanum enough to keep the dreams at bay.

Because after all, what choice does she have?

Because it doesn't matter if she has a choice, Elizabeth tells herself sternly. Because she loves Will; because he loves her. Because that is how it is meant to be. Fated from that first moment on a cold ship's deck so many years ago, when he opened his eyes and looked up at her in wonder, as if she were no mere mortal girl but his own personal angel of salvation. He's never stopped looking at her that way.

_Girl saves boy; boy loves girl; girl marries boy. Isn't that the way this story goes?_

_And they live happily and sedately ever after..._

She never much cared for such stories as a child, she thinks inconsequentially. Much to the dismay and eventual despair of a long succession of tutors, small Elizabeth eschewed tales of princesses and courtly knights on white horses in favor of highwaymen and explorers and corsairs on the high seas...

Ahead of her, Ana changes course slightly; Elizabeth surfaces from the treacherous current of her thoughts to take in her surroundings.

Here, about a quarter-mile from the first buildings of the small port, the cliffs sit far back from the waterline, separated from the beach by dense stands of cypresses and mangroves. Ana guides them away from the bay and under the whispering shadows of leaves at the trees' edge, gliding through the tangled undergrowth without seeming to disturb a single twig or blade of grass. Attempting to follow the other woman's path exactly, Elizabeth feels she is finding all the stray twigs Ana has missed, earning more than one reproving glare from the quartermaster. Meanwhile Jack, despite his apparently haphazard steps, also manages to make minimal noise with what appears to be minimal effort; Elizabeth consoles herself with the thought that she has already trod upon all the branches that might ordinarily snap under his booted feet.

At the border of the town, Ana pauses, throwing Jack a questioning look.

He nods toward the harbor, where several boats, salvage efforts abandoned, are making their slow way back to shore. "To the docks, I think," he says. "Keep your ears open."

But as they thread their way through the narrow, sandy streets, Elizabeth discovers that listening does her no good whatsoever. The few knots of townspeople they pass speak in rapid-fire Spanish; her limited vocabulary allows her to pick out only a few words here and there. Jack's intent expression, however, indicates that he probably has a working knowledge of the language. He strays a bit ahead of Ana and Elizabeth; his erratic trajectory might seem random to a casual observer, but Elizabeth notes how it consistently brings him into earshot of passersby while leading without detour to the harbor.

"It's very different from Tortuga," she ventures after a little while, keeping her voice low. She has a vague idea that an English voice here would likely be singled out and questioned.

Ana grunts an affirmative. "Ain't many free souls here; just a lot of black robes up on yon hill preaching the Gospel, and a profitable market for blackbirders in the village square." She gives a harsh laugh, clearly unamused in the least at the complicity of priests and slavers. "'Tis a Spanish Navy outpost. La Navidad, so called."

They have emerged from among the houses and shuttered shops onto the beachfront; Elizabeth scans the quay, puzzled. "I don't see any Navy vessels?"

For answer, the quartermaster jerks her chin towards the wreck out in the bay, now marked by little more than an accumulation of floating debris on the waves.

"Oh." Indeed, the rowboats which have just returned from investigating the explosion are manned by uniformed soldiers, their faces grim and angry. Elizabeth watches them curiously as they moor the nearest boat at the docks and begin hauling up something bulky and heavy.

Beside her, Jack says urgently, "Best not to look, darling--" But it's too late; Elizabeth has already seen the shackled body as it is laid on the pier. Chains rattle and slide against the planks. Beneath the prone form, a dark, wet stain begins to spread; water or blood, she cannot tell by moonlight.

Fingers pressed to her mouth, she shuts her eyes, still seeing the blackened, contorted limbs, the lolling head, a face charred beyond recognition... She shudders.

Jack's hand grips her shoulder. "Steady, love." She opens her eyes, averting them from the scene on the docks, and finds him frowning at her. He says, "I wish you hadn't seen that."

He is protecting her again; moreover, he's likely regretting allowing her to come ashore in the first place. She squares her back, slipping away from the comfort of his touch. "I've seen dead men before," she says, but the composure she attempts sounds flat and unconvincing to her own ears.

"Aye," says Ana, "but a clean death by sword or pistol, that's one thing. This is different. No need to be ashamed, Mistress Elizabeth. It's not an easy sight for any to stomach."

Elizabeth glances at Ana gratefully, surprised at the woman's rough kindness. Still, she rather wishes Jack would stop giving her that worried, sideways glance, as if he expects her to faint dead away at any moment. She bites her lip, steeling herself, and lets her attention wander along the harbor, noting with studied detachment that two more bodies have been pulled from the boats, that a small group of men stand about talking in subdued murmurs not far from them, and that somewhere to her left a woman is crying; an utterly desolate noise, the dry, heaving sobs of one who has no hope left. Then she stiffens; at the far side of the docks, a familiar vessel rides at anchor. Just as Jack said, the _Lady Swann_ is here.

"What happened in this place?" Elizabeth whispers, to no one in particular.

"That," says Jack softly, "is what we aim to find out."

She stares at him. "I thought we were here to find Will. Aren't we?" He doesn't answer. "Jack! You don't think that _he_ had anything to do with-" And she stops, because she can see that he does think so. The ill-defined uneasiness she's felt since they left the _Pearl_ has a shape now, and a source; it blooms abruptly in her chest like a poisonous flower, crowding all the air out of her lungs. She opens her mouth to speak, but cannot muster any words.

"Stay here," Jack orders brusquely, and strides towards the gathering of sailors and townspeople at the top of the jetty.

Elizabeth makes a move to follow him, but Ana grabs her arm. "We wait," the quartermaster says. Her tone brooks no argument. "No sense drawin' the eye of those Dagos."

A feeling of helplessness overtakes Elizabeth as she realizes Ana is right. She cannot understand the language here; she cannot run down to the pier and search among living and dead for her husband, for fear of being captured and questioned. "Ana, do you think Will..." She trails off, unable to finish the thought.

"There's no way of knowing that, lass," Ana says. "Master Turner may not have been brought here, though his ship's in the harbor. It's a guess, only, as guides us yet."

Though the words are obviously meant to be reassuring, Elizabeth finds little solace in them. She turns to watch Jack, who has already infiltrated the small crowd of bystanders; his back is to her, but she can hear him questioning them in Spanish. One of the seamen answers, pointing towards the bay.

"What are they saying?"

Ana listens, shrugs apologetically. "I'm not catching but a word now and again." Then her expression changes. " _La Venganza,_ " she mutters, half to herself. "The vessel scuttled _was_ Morena's, then."

"Morena?" The name troubles Elizabeth; then she remembers. "He's the one, isn't he? The man who was after Will..."

"Aye." The quartermaster doesn't offer any further comment. Come to think of it, both she and Jack have been remarkably close-mouthed about Will's mysterious enemy.

"What else? Did they mention?"

But Ana gives a half-shake of her head and lifts her hand in a warning gesture; Elizabeth realizes she has forgotten to keep her voice down, and that Jack has abruptly abandoned his conversation, is coming swiftly back towards them.

He takes Elizabeth's elbow, roughly. "Well, let's be off then." He does not look at her. "Come on, look lively, we haven't got all night."

She doesn't move. "Jack, what did he say?"

He drops her arm like it's burned him. "Ana. Take her back to the Pearl."

"No," Elizabeth says quietly. "Not until I know what happened, Jack, I won't--"

His jaw is set. "That's an order, _Mrs. Turner_. Now go." And he stalks past them up the quay; she notices, with a dreamlike sense of unreality, the sudden absence of any drunken, rolling stagger in his step whatsoever...

She hurries after him, catching up with him under the eaves of the town. "Jack! What are you--"

He rounds on her with such an expression as she's never seen from him before, cold and terrible. The dark eyes, now empty of all warmth and mischief, seem to look through her, past her, as if he does not see her at all.

No, she _has_ seen that look, just once before, also in moonlight. His face haunted and hard, dead-eyed, waiting as the echoes of a single shot faded in a listening cave, watching the death of a man he must have once called his friend.

" _Go_ ," he snaps, and walks away, still without even the slightest hint of unsteadiness.

"C'mon, girl," Ana mutters, beside her. "Best we do as Jack says." She lays a hand on the small of Elizabeth's back, pushing her in the other direction. Then she glances behind her and freezes, cursing low and violently...

Elizabeth stops too, and turns.

Jack is standing utterly still at the entrance to a narrow side-alley. Someone steps out to block his way. Elizabeth stifles an exclamation, for though the figure's face is hidden in shadow, there is something about the carriage of the shoulders, perhaps, that she recognizes. She shakes Ana off and starts towards Jack, breaking into a half-run at the familiar voice.

"Well, well...Jack Sparrow. What in the blazes are you doing here?"

* * *

**To all my readers and reviewers...thank you!**

**Literati-Sapphire: You made me smile. That was the longest review EVAH! But I loved it. I agree with you that Elizabeth is more like Jack...they truly are two "peas in a pod." And while I cannot tell you how it will end, I will admit that I want it to turn out just as you've described.**

**Shadow Phenix: I think I've got you beat on updates lately! I'm glad you're still around to read, if not to write. ( _nudge nudge)_ I'll try to get ahold of you on AIM sometime soon.**

**Joan: Thanks for the emails! You really spurred me to get this monstrous chapter finished and posted.**


	25. Under the Wave

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There really is a convent at St. Joseph, in the Trinidads, although it was founded at a somewhat later date (1870.)
> 
> Special thanks to Shadow Phenix for reading my rough draft of this chapter and providing much-needed constructive criticism that proved invaluable, especially in regards to Jack and Norrington's characters.

**Chapter XXIV.  
Under the Wave  
**

_Heavy the beat of the weary waves,  
falling, falling, o'er and o'er on the rocky shore  
when he comes no more, alas! no more!_

"Heavy the Beat of the Weary Waves"

* * *

The unmistakable sound of two pistols being cocked simultaneously echoes in the empty street.

"Good to see you again, mate," Jack Sparrow drawls. "Almost didn't recognize you without all the trappings. The coat gives you away, though. Still, must say--civilian rags, very becoming on you. And I really never cared for that wig--"

"James!"

The figure who has stepped from the shadows of the alley to confront Jack stiffens at the sound of Elizabeth's voice. Both men leave off glowering at one another to stare at her as she reaches Jack's side, breathless. Anamaria is close on her heels, her own pistol at the ready.

" _Elizabeth?_ " For a second, Commodore Norrington's mask of imperturbability slips; he actually sputters. "What in the devil...good God...what is the meaning of this, Mrs. Turner?"

"What a surprise, eh?" Jack says amiably. He does not look in the least bit surprised; the terrible--whatever it was--that was so raw in his eyes a minute ago has been wiped smoothly away and replaced by serene nonchalance. He holds his flintlock almost idly, elbow at his side, his stance relaxed. Elizabeth is not fooled by this. She wonders if Norrington is.

She moves between them until all three pistols are aimed at her own heart. "It's all right, James," she says quietly. "He didn't kidnap me, if that's what you think." Her urgent gesture in Jack's direction is challenged by a skeptically raised eyebrow; but after a moment, he shrugs, clicks the hammer of the flintlock forward, and tucks the weapon in his belt. Elizabeth says, watching Norrington's face, "Ana, too."

The quartermaster hesitates, her expression mutinous; at Jack's nod, she lowers her gun but leaves it cocked, fingering the trigger and favoring the Commodore with a long, warning glance.

Norrington follows suit reluctantly, though he is scowling like a thundercloud. Then he swears with sudden and surprising fluency, and grips Elizabeth by the shoulders, giving her a little shake just as Jack has done earlier in the evening. She seems to inspire such behavior often these days. "Damn it all, Mrs. Turner," he says. "I thought... Have you any idea...?" He pauses, appearing to seize control of himself with Herculean effort. "You had us all believing that the worst had happened."

"I can explain..."

"You had better," he says tightly. "And I hope it's a damn good explanation. Your father," he adds for good measure, "will not be at all pleased."

"Of course he won't be," Elizabeth says, irritated. She welcomes the irritation; the familiar diversion of arguing with Norrington does much to reduce the panicky dread she's been struggling with since she and Jack came ashore. "He'll get over it. He always does." _But will I..."get over" it?_ "Jack rescued me," she tells Norrington. _Again._ "In Tortuga. If it weren't for him, I would have been stranded there when…when the Spanish came."

Jack clears his throat. "Actually," he offers, "it was Miss Elizabeth here who saved my life, as it happens, Commodore." Elizabeth shoots him a quelling look. "Er--we...rescued one another, if you would."

Norrington, clearly, would not. He appears more displeased than ever, as Elizabeth well expected of him. "The only reason I have not arrested you," he says to Jack over Elizabeth's shoulder, "is because I have none of my own men at hand to clap you in irons and drag you off to the brig."

"Well, that's a relief," Jack says, over Ana's audible growl, and Elizabeth does not even have to turn round; she can _hear_ his cheeky grin. "Was beginning to suspect you didn't love me anymore, James, darling."

Norrington, scandalized at the usurpation of his given name and obviously unable to come up with an adequate retort, settles for saying nothing at all in a way that says very distinctly that Jack is too far beneath his notice to warrant response. Elizabeth peers curiously past the bristling Commodore into the darkness of the alley behind him. She has assumed it to be inhabited by redcoats. Instead, one of the bulkier shadows detaches itself from the wall to tip its cap to her.

"Evenin', Missus," it rumbles. "Gladdens me heart to see ye safe and sound, it does."

"Gabriel!" It's all she can do not to fling her arms around the big Scotsman. "You escaped, then! What of the crew?"

"Most...got out alive," McBride says, and stops there.

"And...Will?"

The name drops into an abruptly deepening silence like a stone into water. At her back, Jack has gone completely still, though she thinks he makes an odd half-noise, like he's strangled some word before it can escape his lips. Gabriel studies his big hands miserably, turning his cap around and around; when they pause, his callused fingers tremble slightly. The dread returns tenfold, a breaking sleeper wave, hitting her broadside, sweeping her under. She cannot catch her breath.

Norrington says, heavily, "I thought you must not know, yet." He looks meaningfully over her head again, and says, as if in response to some betrayal written in Jack's eyes, "But you do know, don't you, Sparrow."

"I wanted to...be certain," Jack says, in a voice that is not Jack's. "It is--as I had feared, then?"

"Aye."

Elizabeth takes a step backwards, searching each of their faces in turn, seeing the same answer in each. The impossible thing. No; rather, the possibility she has been refusing to acknowledge, while aware of it all the time, a shadow waiting in the back of her mind. Like fate.

The inevitable thing.

"Jack," she says, hearing herself as if from a long way off. "Certain of what?"

And he says, even farther off, "I'm sorry, love."

"No," she says, but without breath behind it the word is not even a whisper. The wave roars in her ears. The earth drops away from under her feet, leaving her floundering in deep water. Out of those depths rises a nightmare image of a body sprawling limply on a dock. Except now, she knows its face.

_Will._

_Oh, God..._

And then Jack's arm is strong around her waist, anchoring her, pulling her upwards. Keeping her head above water. The wave recedes, taking everything with it.

Except one thing...Bereft of thought or emotion in the wake of the deluge, she draws a long, shuddering breath. She must not weep, not here. Not in front of the Commodore, not in this strange place, out on the open in this wide street, not here. Not. She focuses as hard as she can on this single resolve, pushing the enormity of everything else down, down, ruthlessly crushing any sneaking urge to hysteria.

"He was locked in the brig of _La Venganza_ ," Norrington says, subdued. "We were on our way to commandeer the ship." Grim irony emphasizes the word _commandeer_. "We were...too late. We saw--" He hesitates. "It was very quick," he says. "No one could have escaped. Elizabeth, I am sorry. I cannot tell you how sorry."

She is hollow inside, like a shell. If one of them put an ear to her, they might be able to hear the echo of the wave. Roaring.

Later. She will feel what there is to feel later. Now, she must remember how to stand up, how to inhale and exhale, how to speak, though the words keep slipping out of reach, washed away on the tide. Flotsam and jetsam. She manages to capture a few, hang on to them long enough to string them together. "I don't understand. Why...?"

"Will gave himself up." Norrington speaks gently, as if he's afraid a too-sharp word will shatter her. "In exchange for the freedom of his crew. He thought--" He breaks off.

But she already knows the truth, of course; has struggled with that knowledge for two wakeful nights and two restless days on the _Black Pearl_ , where the sea's rhythm should have soothed her but did not. "He gave himself up for me," she whispers. Will she ever sleep again?

"Not for you alone," and the Commodore's characteristic sharpness resurfaces at this. "Your husband also loved his men. His sacrifice was honorable, and not purely in vain."

"'Twas a fine thing he did, ma'am," says Gabriel, awkwardly.

"Damn fool lad," Jack says. "Damn fool heroics." His voice is rough. "No bloody sense in that family. Bill was just the same."

Ana says, fierce and low, "Where be that murderous devil? Morena?"

Elizabeth hopes he is nearby. She's never killed anyone before, but she thinks it might help appease the roaring thing inside. But Norrington says, with unusual passion, "In Hell, I hope. He was aboard the ship when it...happened. Belowdecks."

"Morena was there, eh?" Jack stirs at Elizabeth's side. "That's interesting...You're certain?"

"Quite certain." The Commodore regards Jack frostily. "What of it?"

"I knew it," mutters Jack. "Fire was no accident. Must have been the lad's doing, aye? Stupid bloody Will...He would do a thing like that, wouldn't he. Taking his enemy with him. Did it a'purpose. Must have done."

"Perhaps so," Norrington allows. "I think it more likely, however, that some sort of struggle transpired, and a lantern was knocked over in the confusion. A great pity...Regardless, it matters little, now."

"Wrong, Master Commodore," Jack says evenly. "It matters a great deal. Among pirates, the manner of a man's going bears as much on the measure of his life as his living of it."

"Allow me to remind you, _Mister_ Sparrow, that Captain Turner was no pirate." Norrington seems to derives great satisfaction from the neglect of Jack's preferred title.

Jack's grin is slow and dangerous. "He was no more pirate, Commodore," he says, "than you are a fool."

"Precisely so," says Norrington, with a scornful little smile. "Whereas you, sir, are as much the paragon of one as of the other. Now if you'll excuse me, Mr. Sparrow, I believe I have a more urgent matter to attend to at present..."

On Jack's other side, Anamaria, watching both men intently, has assumed the coiled attitude of a panther preparing to spring; it occurs to Elizabeth that she, too, should be paying closer attention. Remotely, she recognizes that a savage, barely-contained energy seething behind Jack's deliberately casual mien; he's spoiling for a fight for reasons she does not quite understand, and the tension inherent in the uneasy truce between the two men is stretching to its breaking point. Nonetheless, it seems to her that their conversation is happening at a great distance, and to no great consequence; they may as well be arguing interminably about someone else's tragedy. Someone else's grief. Nothing that is at all to do with her. She stands up as straight as she can, though her mind is numb and every bone in her body is dreadfully, achingly tired, listening to their voices echo in the empty space around the column of her spine.

But the voices have stopped. In the silence, a hand appears in front of her, waiting. After a while, she realizes the hand belongs to Norrington. "Come, Elizabeth," he is saying, not unkindly. "I will escort you back to the _Dauntless_. We sail immediately for Port Royal."

She stares at his hand, then at its owner. It takes some time for his meaning to sink in. When it does, she says, from the depths: "No."

Norrington says politely, "I'm sorry, what?"

"No." Louder this time. "I'm not going with you to the _Dauntless_."

A pause. Then Norrington says rather carefully, "Mrs. Turner, you are clearly beside yourself just now. I know you've had an unimaginable shock. But this is a hostile port, and it's time we saw you safely home."

"I'm not going with you, James," she says again; remembering how to stand up. Both Jack and Norrington are frowning at her now; Gabriel McBride looks mystified. Only Anamaria displays no surprise.

"I fail to see your meaning, madam." Norrington's tone is one of sorely tested patience. "Where else have you to go, for pity's sake?"

_Nowhere to go but back to the noose..._

"I'm going with Jack. If he'll have me," she adds, noticing the Captain's fleeting expression of astonishment. To her relief, he gives her a bemused sort of half-nod.

"Of course." Norrington pins Jack with an accusing glare. "I should have known this was your doing, Sparrow."

"First I've heard of it," Jack says airily. "All her idea, I assure you, mate--but why not, right? Who am I to refuse a lady, an' all that. Wouldn't be gentlemanly, y'know."

If he intends this last--and the ingratiating golden smile that follows upon his words--to aggravate the Commodore, he has succeeded admirably. " _Why not_?" Norrington snorts, incredulous. "It's an utterly ridiculous notion. Even you, Mr. Sparrow, must be aware of that. Mrs. Turner!" he snaps. "I've had quite enough of this nonsense. You _will_ come home to Port Royal. Consider it an order." And he takes hold of her upper arm; not violently, but firmly enough to pinch a bit, so that she lets out an inadvertent exclamation.

She hears Jack's indrawn breath, but doesn't see him move. She only sees the glittering after-image of the cutlass blade as it flashes past her cheek and comes to rest lightly but deliberately against the collar of Norrington's uniform coat.

"You heard the lady, Commodore," Captain Sparrow says, lethally calm.

Norrington releases Elizabeth and steps back, away from the unwavering blade, but his features are hard with fury. "I don't believe you understand, _pirate_ ," he says icily. "It is not your choice to make. You have done the Crown a service, even if unintended, by delivering Mrs. Turner safely into my custody, and in exchange for this good deed I shall not attempt to bring you to the justice you so richly deserve. This time." He draws his sword, raising it warningly. "But it remains my duty to look after the lady and convey her home, and I cannot allow you to obstruct that duty."

"Is that so?" Jack grins wolfishly. "Generous terms, Master Commodore--especially from you. But I fear I must withdraw my services, after all." Advancing upon Norrington, he continues in a conversational manner, "Mrs. Turner is not mine to deliver, nor yours to receive. You see--" He raises his blade. "Some treasures have no price, even for a pirate...Savvy?"

"Jack, ye bloody stupid fool," Ana mutters under her breath. "Bound an' determined to get yourself skewered, ain't ye--"

The Commodore's sword swings up to meet Jack's with a discordant clash of metal upon metal.

_Will made that sword..._

"Enough!"

The combatants freeze mid-parry, startled; almost as if they have forgotten her presence except as the requisite item of contention. Deep down, in a place where she still feels, she is angry at both of them for that.

"Please, gentlemen." She comes forward, placing a hand on Jack's arm. "Jack, it's sweet of you to take my part, but I really would prefer that no one else should...come to harm tonight, on my account."

"Damn shame," Jack growls; the dark eyes glitter dangerously, but he stands down.

Norrington sheaths his sword with a bit of a complacent air. "I hope that means you are prepared to act rightly in this matter, madam."

"It does," Elizabeth says, "although perhaps not in the way that you mean." She meets his gaze squarely; it seems to disconcert him. "I am not your ward, James, nor your wife. If there is duty here to serve, it is mine, not yours. My choice."

"'Twill not be the only rash choice you've made." Norrington's short laugh is rather more bitter than she would have expected; she realizes, belatedly, that her words have prodded an old wound. "I am well aware that I am not your husband, Mrs. Turner."

"I'm sorry, James. I didn't mean--"

He holds up a hand for silence, but it is his expression, not the gesture, that brings her up short. "I did, however, make a promise to your husband," he says. "When he asked, I told him I'd look after you. And it is not my habit to give my word lightly."

Suppressing a pang at this, and stung by Norrington's veiled rebuke, she says coldly, "So you would make me a prisoner, then? Escort me back to my father like a wayward child? I know you mean to honor Will's wishes... but what of my wishes? Do they matter not at all to you?"

"I venture to suggest that if you were thinking clearly, you would most likely find that you wished differently," Norrington observes dryly. "We both know that the _Black Pearl_ 's business is piracy. Captain Sparrow is a criminal, a wanted man, and consorting with such a outlaw willingly could be construed as a hanging offense. Yet you still wish to sail with him? As usual, Mrs. Turner, your reasoning escapes me."

She steals a glance at the outlaw in question; he stands watching her with arms folded, his face unreadable. Catching her eye, he inclines his head slightly, lifting an ironic eyebrow as if awaiting her answer. She says, as much to him as to Norrington, "Jack is my friend, Commodore, hard as it may be for you to imagine, and a good man. He will keep me safe. And he is--" She falters. Remembers how to breathe. "He was Will's friend."

"But I was Will's friend, as well," Norrington says quietly. "As I am yours. It is your best interest I have in mind, Elizabeth. You must know that."

"And I do," she says. "I do know that. But James--" On impulse, she reaches out, takes his unyielding hand between both of hers. "I cannot bear the thought of Port Royal, of home. Not now...not yet. I..." But there is no way to explain the roar of the wave to Norrington, how it waits to rise and swallow her in the echoing chambers of her small white house, in the slow ebb-tide of a widow's life. She says instead, "I won't ask you to understand, or expect you to approve. Only let me decide what is best for me, this time."

The Commodore stares down at her, as if taken aback at her gesture; after a moment, he reclaims his hand, his mouth a thin, troubled line.

"I ask you," she says. "As my friend, James. Let me go."

"Is there nothing that would persuade you to choose differently?"

She shakes her head once, biting her lip; she doesn't quite trust herself to speak.

"Very well," he says slowly. "I will not force you to do aught against your will, though I cannot say I care for the situation...You," he barks. "Sparrow. Will you swear to grant the lady safe passage and accommodation on the _Black Pearl_ , for as long as she might desire it?"

"On pain of death," Jack says, unsmiling.

"Indeed." Norrington's expression is equally grim. "If she should come to any harm, Sparrow, rest assured I will hold you responsible." He turns back to Elizabeth. "And what of the Governor? What would you have me tell him?"

"Father? Tell him I am safe. Tell him..." Her mouth twists, not quite a smile. "Say I have gone to the convent at St. Joseph's, and that I will remain there in mourning for a while. He would accept that, I think...But tell him I shall come to visit him, by and by."

"You would have me lie for you," Norrington muses. "And as you place my reputation at stake along with your own, I am, as always, unable to refuse you." He adds cryptically, "As is Captain Sparrow, I can well perceive. I must commend you, madam." His little bow is sardonic. "You have all manner of men at your feet, it would seem."

Jack looks uncomfortable. Elizabeth says, somewhat uncertainly, "Thank you."

"Pray do not thank me," the Commodore says acidly. "I fear you'll recognize this favor for a grave disservice, should you come to your senses. I suggest that you sail with all haste, before I come to mine."

"Much obliged, Commodore," says Jack. "We'll just be off, then, if you don't mind."

Norrington fixes him with a stern glare. "You realize, of course, that I cannot warn the Royal Navy off the _Black Pearl_ without inviting some very awkward questions as to my loyalties and good judgment."

"Of course not," Captain Sparrow says smoothly. "Wouldn't dream of asking such a thing. You'll see neither hide nor hair of us, I assure you. Shall we, ladies?"

"Aye, Cap'n." Anamaria looks relieved. "We've overstayed ourselves already, if ye ask me. Tide's comin' in, too."

"Elizabeth?" The Captain says her name softly, his touch light on her elbow.

"Aye," Elizabeth whispers.

Gabriel touches his cap. "Fare ye well, Missus Turner. My sympathies to ye." He adds gruffly, "Never knew a better Cap'n, nor 'un so fair-minded as was William Turner, ma'am."

"Thank you, Gabe," she murmurs and grips his hand briefly, pushing back the knotted ache that rises in her throat at his statement.

As she turns away, Norrington says, "Mrs. Turner! A moment, if you please."

She hesitates. If he tries to drag her back to the _Dauntless_ , now...She doesn't know how much fight she has left in her. But he only pulls something from the breast pocket of his jacket, and holds it out to her. "For you."

She takes it; a plain envelope, sealed. Puzzled, she raises questioning eyes to Norrington's.

"I am sorry, Mrs. Turner," Norrington says.

It is not an answer, but she knows that he means it. Because she does not know what to say, she says again, "Thank you."

"He was a good man, Elizabeth," the Commodore adds. Then: "He thought always, and first, of you..."

And she finds she has nothing at all to say, to that.

* * *

Elizabeth doesn't speak once on their way back to the Pearl. She follows Ana half-blindly down the beach like a sleepwalker. Jack, casting about for words that will reach her, realizes that no such words exist; not for this; not even if he was good at this sort of thing, or used to it. He settles for observing her narrowly out of the corner of his eye and steadying her when she stumbles, which she does with alarming frequency; she doesn't glance up at his touch, or react to his mild oath as he finally gives up and links his arm with hers.

He finds himself thinking about how she turned to him, realizing what they were trying to say to her without saying it outright; knowing the truth, hoping he would tell her it was not. _Truth? No truth at all..._ How her eyes went dead, all the light drained out of them, when he could not tell her so.

_Dead. Young Will is dead. That's two Turner's I've failed._

_Make that three._

She'd moved, fractionally, as if to lunge toward the docks where the corpses salvaged from the wreck lay shrouded, mercifully, in canvas; and he'd caught her and held her back, until he felt her breathe at last. And that was all. No weeping, none of the hysteria he would have expected from any other woman. Instead, she stood ramrod-straight and resolute, face shut like a cell door, insisting that the Commodore submit his Royal Navy sense of duty to her whim with such conviction that the Royal Navy conceded defeat. He saw her strength, then, magnified by his knowledge of the vulnerability that lay behind it.

Still, he wishes she hadn't found out that way.

He wishes he could think of a way he could have told her first, a way he could have made it easier.

...Bollocks. He's _definitely_ not good at this sort of thing. He should have sent her home with bloody Norrington, he thinks rather desperately. Why didn't he send her home with bloody Norrington? But she'd run him through with that pleading look again, and he'd abandoned all his better judgment.

Why didn't she _want_ to go home with bloody Norrington?

And what in the blazes is he to do with her, now?

He helps her into the rowboat; she huddles at the prow, her gaze fixed on the dark, placid waters of the bay, where only a few timbers still float among the waves. He sees her shiver.

"You cold, love?" he asks, but she does not seem to hear. He sighs, and leans forward to tuck his greatcoat more snugly around her shoulders. She makes no resistance to his fussing; he wonders if she's at all aware of her surroundings, until she reaches up with one hand to hold the coat's collar closed against the wind. Her other hand rests in her lap, crushing that letter fiercely in white-knuckled fingers. It'll be a miracle if the message inside isn't smudged beyond legibility by the time she opens it.

"Not much you can do for her just now," Ana says, watching him. "'Less you can snap her out of the shock, and then she'll need you, right enough."

Jack nods absently, frowning at the wrinkled envelope clutched in Elizabeth's hand. What did Norrington say to her as she took it? The Commodore pitched his voice too low to carry, and Jack was already walking away at the time. Norrington is a hard man, but not cruel; having sailed with him in pursuit of Hector Barbossa, Jack knows him well enough to be sure of that. He would not speak to wound, not in such a delicate situation. But something more than simple grief has left Elizabeth mute.

It's not right, this silence. Not right that her eyes should be so empty, all their fire quenched, not even a spark there now. He thinks he can't let her go on like this much longer; she should cry, or scream, before the pressure of that dammed-up emotion rises up and breaks her all to pieces.

So when, back aboard the _Pearl_ , Elizabeth halts midway across the deck as if she's forgotten where she is and where she's going, he is right behind her.

"Get us underway," he orders Anamaria over his shoulder. "Before the Commodore has a chance to think things over, savvy?" To Elizabeth, he says, "Well? Aren't you going to open it?"

Only when he steps in front of her and plucks the envelope from her bloodless fingers does she raise her head, brows drawn slightly together in bewilderment, as she might regard a stranger confronting her on the street. Her lips form the word, "What?"

"Here." He pulls out his pocketknife and slits the envelope open at the top without breaking the Commodore's seal. The single piece of foolscap inside is only somewhat the worse for wear.

He passes it back to her; she unfolds it slowly, her hands trembling a little. Then her face goes rigid.

"What is it?" he demands.

The letter slips from her loosened grip, and as he stoops to rescue it from the tar and salt-spray of the deck, she makes a rush for the portside rail. She's got one foot up on the bulwark before he overtakes her, yanks her roughly back.

"Sorry, love." He pins her arms to her sides as she struggles. "Can't let you do that, I'm afraid--"

The _Pearl_ is already moving; Elizabeth chokes out, "But he's back there! We're leaving him! We can't just leave him--!"

 _Not good_. "He's gone, Elizabeth," he says, as gently as he can, holding her. It must be said. "Will's gone. There's no going back for him now."

"Damn you!" She rounds on him suddenly, fists flailing wildly against his chest. "Why, Jack? You knew. Why didn't you tell me--?"

Her blows are fierce but light, the desperate tattoo of bird's wings against the door of a cage. For a moment he lets her strike out at him, because her eyes have blazed into life again and that means not all is lost. Then he captures her wrists, stilling her frantic movement.

Standing at bay, her fists raised and clenched, she looks at him as if seeing him clearly for the first time since the _Pearl_ dropped anchor in Navidad harbor. And behind her eyes, the dam finally breaks, the seawall crumbling as she crumples into him.

"Oh, Jack…"

He gathers her in his arms, lifting the slight, shaking body easily; she clings to him, gasping, like a drowning woman pulled from deep water.

"Shh, shh," he murmurs. "I've got you, love. Let's get you in out of the cold then, shall we?"


	26. Surfacing

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Elizabeth's utterance of "Hmph" in this chapter was borrowed shamelessly and without permission, for the sole reason that it seemed fitting and amused me, from a lady of the same name and similar temperament who is featured in James L. Nelson's Brethren of the Coast series.
> 
> **Special and profuse thanks** to Geek Mama for being my expert beta-victim this time around, and for kindly reassuring me that I had not committed any crimes of gross mischaracterization, plagiarism, or bad taste.

**Chapter XXV.  
** **Surfacing**

_Yes, weep, and however my foes may condemn,  
thy tears shall efface their decree;  
for Heaven can witness, though guilty to them,  
I have been but too faithful to thee._

"When He Who Adores Thee"

_One night she knelt close by my side  
when I was fast asleep.  
She threw her arms around my neck  
and she began to weep.  
She wept, she cried, she tore her hair  
Ah, me! What could I do?  
So all night long I held her in my arms  
just to keep her from the foggy foggy dew._

"The Foggy, Foggy Dew"

* * *

Shouts of " _Fuego!_ " and " _Madre de Dios!_ " can be heard ringing out across the harbor as Nichole D'Bouvoire and her companion drag themselves up onto the muddy shore beneath the pier. The other seems willing to rest there, but Nichole is not; stupid to stop now, before they are well away. "Come on," she hisses, and Morena's prisoner staggers to his feet. She leads the man, ducking and stumbling, from pier to pier, until he collapses in the shadows under the farthest dock. Nichole flings herself down beside him.

He turns to her, then, in the dark. "Who are--"

There are men with torches coming along the seawall. "Shh!" She pulls him face-down into the muck. The torchlight sweeps over them cursorily, without a pause. The voices move on.

Her companion lifts his head cautiously. "Are they looking for us?"

"Doubtful," Nichole says, and smirks. "People don't often look for you when you're dead, and they tend not to see you, either. It's one of the great advantages. Captain Nichole D'Bouvoire," she adds, extending a muddy hand. "Formerly of the _Seahawk_ , recently deceased. And you?"

"Captain Will Turner," he says. He rolls slightly to one side, grasps her fingers weakly. "Formerly of the... _Lady Swann_. Apparently...deceased as well. As of tonight."

_Will Turner._ She knows that name, doesn't she? She gives her companion a searching glance. _So this is the husband of young 'Leslie Swann.' Interesting..._ "Don't worry," she says aloud. "You'll soon get used to it. Being dead, I mean. It's not nearly as bad as it's made out to be." Then, hearing his harsh indrawn breath as he attempts to push himself upright, she abandons the joke, says sharply, "You are hurt. What ails you?"

He grimaces; his face is pale under the smears of dirt. "My head. And a broken rib...I think. And I feel...quite ill..."

She manages to clean her hand somewhat on her soaked tunic, presses a palm against his cheek. " _Mon Dieu_ ," she mutters. "You're burning up with fever, Will Turner. We had better get moving, or you'll be dead for good sooner rather than later." She sits back on her knees. "Can you get up, if I help you?"

Jaw set, he says grimly, "If I must, I must."

"Let's try it, then, shall we?" She hooks an arm about his waist, as carefully as possible. "Sit up first. One--two--three--" and he is upright, gasping. "Good. Which rib is it, by the way?"

"Lower," he grates out. "On the right."

She nods, goes around to his left side. "Ready?"

He's giving her a strange look. "Why...are you helping me, Miss D'Bouvoire?"

"It's Captain," she says. "Put your arm 'round me, or this won't work. And we'll just say, for now, that the enemy of my enemy is my friend, yes? One--two--" She drags him upwards. "Three."

He's built well, though not heavily, and is clearly a strong man when not so ill-used. Still, he's unable to help her much, and it requires considerable effort on her part to get him to his feet. Once there, he sways for a moment, leaning heavily on her; the pressure with which he grips her shoulder makes it plain that her support is the only thing keeping him standing.

Then his knees give way, and he crumples forward. She catches him, slowing his fall, but he is already unconscious--whether from pain or fever, she cannot tell. When she kneels by his side and pulls back one lid with a careful finger, only the white of his eye is visible.

"Oh, bugger," says Nichole D'Bouvoire, succinctly and with great feeling.

* * *

Jack's cabin is dark and slightly musty with the scent of old parchment, overlaid by a faint, spicy musk that is uniquely his. He seats Elizabeth on the big four-poster bed before taking out his tinder-box and lighting the sconces set in the bulkhead, followed by the tapers in the eclectic assortment of candlesticks that scatter the shelves and small, map-cluttered table. Finished, he crosses to the bureau, where he pours a small amount of amber-colored liquid from a small decanter, and returns to hand her the glass.

She accepts it warily. "What is it--rum?"

"Whiskey," he says. "Don't much care for the stuff myself, but I keep it for emergencies. Drink it. It'll help, I promise you."

She tosses half of it back, gasping as the liquid fire sears her throat and settles in her belly, sending tendrils of warmth creeping through her frozen core.

"Good girl."

"It's beastly."

"Told you I don't keep it for the taste." He stands a few feet away, watching her; the candlelight accentuates the sharp angles of his jawbone and brow, and conspires for a moment with his slight frown to make him look his age: hollow-eyed, care-worn. Of course; he must be grieving, too. Remembering his haunted look back in Navidad harbor, when he'd known or suspected the truth about Will, Elizabeth shivers slightly and tips up her glass to drain the last of the whiskey.

"There," he says. "Feel better?"

"A little," she says; but her voice breaks and she has to look down, swallowing hard.

He is by her side at once; crouching before her to massage her hands between both of his own, he peers up into her eyes, and mutters a soft oath at what he sees there. He takes her in his arms, then, sitting beside her on the bed and pulling her to him; shaking with suppressed sobs, she hides her face against his chest.

They remain thus for a while without speaking. Elizabeth, settling closer against him as she calms, hears his heartbeat quicken just a fraction; then he draws a deep breath and his pulse evens out, slow and strong under her cheek. She breathes with him, and thinks, _Five days ago I would have pushed him away._

But everything has changed, now. And somehow what would have seemed a strange and disgraceful predicament to her, just a few short days ago, seems the most natural thing in the world on this terrible night.

"Is this my punishment, Jack?" she says at last.

He rears back slightly to study her, his expression perturbed. "Now why would you say a thing like that?"

"Mrs. Dupont...the minister's wife, back in Port Royal, you know...she would say God took Will as the wages of my sin..."

"Rubbish," he snaps. Then, much more gently, "It's you, my dear, who are punishing yourself unnecessarily. God and sin have nothing to do with it."

She stares into the dregs of her glass. "I feel as if I'd killed him."

"Well, don't." His reply is sharp, immediate. "Your Will chose the life of a privateer. 'Twas in his blood, after all...He knew the occupational hazards well enough."

She says, bleakly, "But that's just it...He didn't choose it. He did it for me. To provide the life he thought I should have."

"Ah." He rises and rummages through the clutter on the table until he comes up, rather triumphantly, with another glass. "Tell me something, darling. Did you ever ask him to do that for you?"

"No!" she bursts out. "I would never ask such a thing of him! I told him that...more than enough times. I would have been just as happy as a blacksmith's wife as I was as the wife of a...'merchant sailor'." Jack lifts an eyebrow at this, but says nothing. "It was Father who put him up to it, of course."

"Old Weatherby? Really?" Jack pours himself some whiskey, offers the decanter to her; she shakes her head. He shrugs, and grimaces as he takes a large swallow of the stuff. "I can't imagine the Governor endorsing piracy as a career for his own son-in-law, even in the name of the Crown."

"Unless it was discreet...My father always tries to do what is right. But he doesn't much distinguish between what is right and what is...decorous."

"A well-intentioned man, but a rather foolish one, I fear." He pauses. "Apologies, love. I don't mean to disparage your Da. "

"Why not? It's true enough." She continues woodenly, "Will was very like him in that way: always so concerned about what was proper--which is how I imagine Father managed to convince him to take the letter of marque, even to lie to me about it." The thought tightens like a knot in her throat; she swallows it down. "That was one of the reasons I couldn't bear to go home with James, you know."

"And why's that, love?"

"To face my father, after all of this--so soon--I'm afraid I might come to hate him. And I couldn't bear to hate him..." Especially because it's not her father's fault, not really. Wrong of her to want to put the blame on him, to want so very badly to give in to Jack's persuasion, to take the solace offered there.

Then again, Jack might be right. Maybe Will did want-- _had_ , she amends brutally, _had wanted_ \--the life of a privateer. Somehow, she has stopped knowing what Will wanted; now she will never know for certain. But she does know that Will and the Governor acted to protect her, to serve the Crown, and she...she has acted in no one's interest but her own. _Selfish._ Stupidly, shamefully selfish.

"You're doing it again," Jack observes mildly. She looks up, confused; he goes on, "Torturin' yourself over it. Trying to think what you might have done different, to change things. Thinking you could have done a hundred things, a thousand..."

"How do you know...?"

"Well, for one thing, you're practically ripping my poor counterpane to shreds," he says dryly. He's right; her fingers are clutching convulsively at the bedspread. She stills them with an effort. "But mostly I know because I've been there, love. I've lost good men. Good friends..." and his mouth twists, old pain remembered. "A captain is responsible for the safety of his crew; men have died for mistakes I've made. You think 'if only I'd done it right, chosen someone else, steered us in another direction.' But it doesn't matter. In the end you're still where you were, you've got to go on, and they can't. They're still gone; the sea still takes them. And you can't change that. It's done, it's over." He contemplates the remaining liquor in his glass, downs it abruptly. "Blaming yourself won't bring him back, Elizabeth. It'll only hurt you more; it'll kill you, if you let it."

She cries, "I can't help it! I can't believe he's gone--" She buries her face in her hands; after a moment, she feels his touch on her bent head, on her shoulder.

Presently, he says, "Here," and holds out a remarkably white and lacy handkerchief. "It's quite clean," he assures her. "Stole it only recently."

"Thank you," she says, with a choked sort of laugh. She takes the proffered handkerchief gratefully, scrubs at her swollen eyes and nose. "You're being very kind to me tonight."

"And you find that strange, do you?"

"A little," she admits.

He raises an eyebrow. "Because I've been so cruel to you these past few days, is that it?"

"You know that's not what I meant," she mutters.

"Is it not?" He goes to the table and pours himself another tot of whiskey, his movements deliberate. "You'd be right, I believe. I haven't exactly been the perfect gentleman, love."

She snorts, and feels the world tilt a fraction back towards normalcy. "Are you ever that, Jack Sparrow?" This is safe ground, their familiar verbal dance, subtle goad and arch reply.

"Not if I can help it," he says, with just the shadow of a grin. "And yet," he adds thoughtfully, "you are still here...I find that very strange, indeed."

"Jack—" And just like that, he's changed the rules on her again. Sincerity, a much riskier game. "If I wanted the company of a gentleman, I would have sailed with the Commodore."

"Ah. I wondered what the other reason was."

"Reason...? For what?"

He appears to consider the glass in his hand, sets it down untasted. "For not sailing home aboard the _Dauntless_. Besides not wanting to face your father, and an understandable desire to avoid the philosophies of the good Mrs. Dupont."

"There were...a number of reasons," she says, and doesn't elaborate.

He waits, head inclined attentively.

"There is no comfort for me at home," she says finally, to the floorboards. "Without Will..." She falters, whispers, "There is nothing left for me there. Nothing to remind me how to live, or that I want to..."

He speaks casually, but she can feel his gaze on her. "And here?"

She takes a deep breath, and lifts her head to meet his eyes.

"Ah," he says softly, just as if she has spoken, though she is not entirely sure what answer he has read in her glance. "That's all right, then." And his face relaxes, just a little, so that he does not seem quite so haunted. "In that case, I shall endeavor to remind you as often as possible."

There is, she thinks, too much space between them. Getting to her feet, she finds that they will hold her now; they carry her to him. He folds her against him wordlessly, presses a chaste kiss to her temple.

"Jack," she says into his collarbone. "Can I--would you mind if I slept here tonight?"

She hadn't meant to voice that thought, and she instantly wishes she hadn't. _Too bold, Elizabeth Turner..._ But he says merely, "Aye, if you like. I've a hammock I set up on deck sometimes--"

"No," she says, boldness begetting boldness, and draws back just far enough to look at him. "Please. I don't want to sleep alone..."

He regards her searchingly, eyes dark and unreadable, while the silence stretches between them. Then he raises a hand to tuck a loose tendril of hair back from her forehead, lets his fingers brush her cheek in the lightest of caresses. "So that is the way of it," he murmurs. "Very well..."

She finds herself turning her cheek into his palm, the contact awakening a profound ache in her body for the comfort and heat of skin upon skin. To her utter bewilderment, it is he who pulls away... _too soon, too soon!_...and she bites her lip to keep from crying out in protest.

"I must see to the _Pearl_." There is an odd note in his voice, an emotion she can't quite identify. "You, m'lady, will be staying right here. In fact..." he frowns, "I've a mind to set a guard on this cabin, after that little trick you played earlier."

She knows he means that moment at the rail; she didn't know she'd climbed it until he pulled her down. She thinks she must have lost her mind a little. She cannot even recall their trip back to the _Pearl_ from Navidad. Her memory skips from James' haggard face to Jack's furious one as he dragged her back from the bulwarks.

"Bloody hell," he says. "Lizzie--"

She starts as if from a dream. The name is unexpected; he's always called her Elizabeth, Mrs. Turner, or a dozen different flippant endearments: love, darling, m'lady. Never Lizzie. But it's the way he says it, on a deep, ragged rumble, that stirs her blood, piercing through the deadly numbness that threatens to descend upon her mind and heart.

He forces her chin upwards, those dark eyes boring into hers. "Promise me you won't try anything that bloody _stupid_ again."

Finding herself speechless, she nods, once.

"Good," he says, low and fierce. And kisses her. It's not chaste this time; his mouth is hard on hers, and she responds in kind, hands tangling among braids and beads, letting his heat race through her like whiskey. He tastes of whiskey, too; it's not such a bad flavor, after all. His lips are on her jaw now, her throat. Though she molds herself against him, she cannot seem to get close enough.

"Lizzie," he murmurs; a plea, a prayer that marks her skin. In answer, she shifts her hips slightly, and hears his shuddering inhalation, feels his rising need; it matches hers. But suddenly he stills, looking down at her gravely.

"Jack," she says, breathless, touching him; but he intercepts her roving hands, holds them fast between their bodies. "Jack, what is it?"

"It occurs to me," he says, very gently, "that we might not want to be doing this, love."

"But I thought..." Hesitating, she realizes her pride has no place here. She suspects Jack sees through it, anyway. "I thought you did want this. Thought you wanted me..."

"Elizabeth. Darling. It's not that." He folds his fingers around hers, says on an urgent undertone, "I have not wanted anyone, anything so much in a very long time...But not like this. Do you understand? If I took you now, as I would like to do..." He closes his eyes briefly, exhales. "It wouldn't be right by you, love."

"I don't believe this." She lets out a shaky laugh. "The world must have gone mad! I practically throw myself at you, and you--you, the infamous Jack Sparrow!--are telling me that you will not take me into your bed because it's not _right_ \--?"

"Aye," he says quietly. "And it's you who's done it, Lizzie. Changin' me. Making me want to be a better man than what I am. No good can come of it," and he flashes her a crooked, golden grin that is gone as quickly as it appears, leaving him somber and distant. "But it's nothing at all to do with what's wrong and what's right, really." Then his gaze locks with hers, and something in that gaze makes her breath hitch in her throat. His voice drops, roughened velvet. "It's only this: that I would not cause you pain, nor have you sorrow any more on my account. Not like last time..."

She stares at him. "Last time...do you really think I still blame you for that? I acted a bloody little fool, and you and I both know it. But you said it yourself. It's different between us, now. It wouldn't be like that, not tonight..."

"Wouldn't it?" he demands harshly. "Can you honestly tell me that tomorrow you will not feel that I took advantage of you in your grief? Can you honestly tell me that wouldn't be the truth of it?" He releases her hands abruptly. "No. Whatever is between us, Lizzie, I would not have it be regret."

"Nor would I," she whispers.

He's eyeing her almost warily, now; picking up his abandoned glass, he tosses back the contents as if by reflex. "Must go," he mutters. "The _Pearl_ needs me...Make yourself at home, Mrs. Turner."

_And if I need you? What then, Jack Sparrow?_ But she doesn't say it. She has some pride left, after all; and the meaning behind his use of her married name is not lost on her.

He turns to leave; then he stops short. "Blast. I almost forgot. I believe this is yours." He produces a crumpled piece of foolscap. "You dropped it earlier. Thought you might want to have it."

_Will's letter!_ How could she have forgotten about the letter? "Thank you," she says stiffly, and reaches out to take it. He captures her wrist as she does so, and she looks up, startled.

"Not to worry, love," he says, with another one of his lightning grins. "I'll be back. Somehow I don't fancy sleeping under the stars tonight. 'Tis an unseasonably cold night for September, and I'm older than I look, y'know."

And just like that, he is gone. Watching the cabin's double doors swing shut, she almost calls out to him; she hasn't remembered, until just now, that she is still wearing his coat.

Instead, she sinks into a chair, and spreads the single page out before her on the table with something very much like reluctance.

* * *

_My darling Elizabeth,_

_If you are reading this, it is likely that I am no longer in this world. This letter is the only way I have of reaching you, for they tell me you are lost, that you are in the clutches of that villain, my enemy, Captain Morena. I can only pray that you are well and hope against hope that you have not been mistreated. In this, and in all that has lately befallen the both of us, I hold myself fully accountable._

_You must now be aware that I no longer sail as a merchant, but as a privateer. Though I will not pretend to understand completely why you ran away from Port Royal, I know that it was at least in part my lie in this regard that led you to such rash action. It was my cowardice that drove me to that lie; I feared you would think less of me, for I had betrayed my own principles, and was ashamed. But I should have told you the truth in that, and in all things._

_For the truth is, my dear one, I have made every mistake there was to make with you. But please know that I do love you with all of my heart; even if not, perhaps, in the way that you deserve._

_The truth, I fear, is that I loved the dream of you so much, I never quite came to know the reality behind that vision of perfection. For you have been a dream to me since I met you, Elizabeth. You are my most precious jewel, my Evening Star, my goddess. And yet, I begin to see--only now, when it is too late--that I have treated you all too often as a treasure to be guarded, that while I can see you in my mind's eye, shining from afar, you might not be able to see me thus; that you have no star to look to._

_Believe me when I say I never meant to take away your freedom. But that is what I have done, though I intended the opposite: to ensure that you would never be tied to the dreary, difficult life of a craftsman's wife. I always thought that fate had somehow placed us in one another's paths, had laid me at your feet that night so long ago. But perhaps it was never fated to be that way between us. Perhaps I was wrong to think that I could make you happy._

_Elizabeth, I wish that I could somehow make this right again. But I cannot change the past, nor can I deny fate, if indeed this is ours. All I can do is hope that, whatever happens to me now and whatever doom I must face, you will live and be happy, and that you will never again let any man keep you caged; not even for love._

_I am sorry, my dearest. Though I must now bid you farewell, I am still and always will be,_

_Yours,_

_William Turner._

* * *

Jack returns to his cabin sometime later to find Elizabeth asleep at his table, her head pillowed on her folded arms, her lax hand resting atop that damnable letter. She has taken the pins out of her hair, at least; it pools on his charts, spills in honeyed waves over her shoulders.

"This won't do, Lizzie." He traces one finger down her cheek, following the tear-tracks drying there. "No, this won't do at all..."

At his light touch, she stirs, but does not wake. After a moment's reflection, he bends down and lifts her in his arms as if she were a child.

"Jack," she murmurs. "You came back."

"Aye." He lays her down on the bed. "Said I would, didn't I?"

She regards him briefly, lashes at half-mast. "Hmph." But her eyes flutter closed again, and she appears to have fallen back asleep.

Sitting at the foot of the bed, he shakes his head at her, bemused, and turns his attention to the task of removing her boots; once finished, he leans across her to pull back the blankets. She makes a protesting noise as he tucks them round her.

"But I'm still _dressed_..."

"I was hoping you wouldn't notice that little detail," he says, half-amused, half-exasperated. "And you would like me to remedy the situation, is that it?"

"Mmm," she says, an affirmative. He studies her face for some sign that she's bluffing, but detects none.

"Minx," he mutters. "I suppose I have an old shirt or something of the like that you can wear. But you'll be undressing yourself, d'you hear?"

"Hmm?"

"Never mind," he growls, and goes to find one for her.

He thought he remembered her skin, how fair and smooth it is, the beauty of her; but she is even more lovely than his memory of her, and candlelight illuminates the planes and contours of her body in a way that moonlight did not. He is almost glad when she is clothed again, though his shirt is not as large on her as he would like. Taking a long breath, he turns up the covers over her slender legs, and thinks that the chilly night air on deck might be a blessing, after all.

He straightens, but she grasps his hand, cold-fingered. "Don't go..."

"You're bound and determined to torment me tonight, aren't you," he starts; and breaks off, for he notices that her eyes are open now, huge and glittering with tears, and that she's trembling visibly beneath the sheets.

"I thought I had dreamed it all," she whispers, once she is curled into his side and the tremors have begun to ebb somewhat. "But he's still gone, Jack. This is real, and he's still gone..."

He strokes her hair, gathering her closer, and says, "Aye. This is real."

But long after she has slipped once more into a deep, exhausted slumber, he lies awake; holding her, listening to the steady tide of her breath, he too finds himself wondering if this is, after all, only an awful and wondrous dream.

* * *

Later, he awakens again in the dark to her hands, her body pressing urgently against him. "Remind me," she says. "I've forgotten...oh, Jack, remind me..."

_Remind me how to live... that I want to..._

The naked desolation in her voice pierces his heart like a knife; and he finds he has no questions to ask her, this time, about regrets either past or future. He puts his mouth on hers to silence her, drinks the bitterness of her need along with the sweetness, and proceeds to utilize every skill gained and refined in a thousand casual encounters to remind them both, as thoroughly and tenderly as he knows how, of the immediacy and ascendancy of life.


	27. Coming Home

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Historical Note:** Most parts of Hispaniola, whence the fictional Navidad is located, switched back and forth between Spanish and French rule during this time period. In the world of this story, Navidad was once a French settlement, but is now under Spanish control, hence the linguistic mixture. The pertinence of this information will become clear in following chapters.

**Chapter XXVI.  
** **Coming Home**

_Full ten thousand miles behind us  
_ _and a thousand miles before,  
_ _ancient ocean waves to waft us  
_ _to the well-remembered shore.  
_ _Newborn breezes swell to send us  
_ _to our childhood welcome skies  
_ _to the glow of friendly faces  
_ _and the glance of loving eyes._

\--"Rolling Home"

* * *

Nichole D'Bouvoire, who rarely hesitates, is hesitating now.

The sign above the door of the little shop still reads " _Apothicaire_ ," with a smaller sign below it, a concession to changing times and languages: " _Botanica_." Nichole went round the front, first, to make sure. Though the workshop next door is dark and silent, light chinks through the small windows upstairs above the shop, and under the kitchen door.

Nevertheless, she lingers uncertainly in the shadows by the back gate, at the edge of Navidad village. Behind her, the jungle stirs, but the whispers of the palms and mangroves make her less nervous than what lies before her. The jungle is the same as it always has been, just as it was long ago, when it saved a young girl running for her life. But are other things the same...?

 _It's been too long_ , she thinks, almost panicky. _Too many years since I last walked through this gate. And they were not young when I knew them..._

She controls a start when something butts up against her calf, and glances down. Two glowing green eyes stare up at her from a small, furry gray face.

"Mrow," commands her attacker, and threads its way around her muddy legs.

"Shh," she chides, crouching. "Hello there, puss..."

"Mrow."

She scratches the grey tabby's ears, to much appreciative purring, and considers the creature thoughtfully. "Well, it appears someone still feeds you lot..." Standing again, her resolve strengthened, she gives the kitchen door a speculative look.

It cracks open, spilling golden lamplight into the yard. Nichole moves backwards instinctively, taking cover under the branches of the sprawling magnolia bush that guards the gate.

Then she hears the peculiar sing-song whistle from the figure in the doorway, and her heart swells at the familiar sound. Her new friend is just as pleased; the cat leaps over the gate and trots toward the house. Nichole straightens slowly, hanging back in the shadows. The figure bends down to greet the dozen or so felines who have swarmed up the steps from various places in the yard, answering the whistled summons with loud meowing.

_Some things don't change so much, after all._

She must not be as stealthy as she means to be, however, for the old woman at the door suddenly raises her head, calling out sharply, "¿ _Quién está_?"

"Just one more stray, Auntie," says Nichole, in French, and steps toward the gate.

There is a long pause. "Come here, child," the old lady says, in a queer voice. "Into the light, where I can see you properly."

Nichole obeys, re-latching the gate behind her at the remembrance of long-ago scoldings, and walks towards the door. Most of the cats scatter at her approach, except for the grey tabby, who watches the new visitor expectantly.

The old lady squints at her for a moment. "Your pardon, lad," she says finally. "You reminded me of someone, in the way you spoke just now."

" _Une fille rousse, peut-être_?" says Nichole softly, and throws back her black hood so that her hair spills around her shoulders.

" _Mon Dieu_ ," whispers the old woman, trembling. "It cannot be..."

"But it is." Nichole reaches out, takes the gnarled hands between her own. " _C'est moi, Marie. C'est moi._ "

A little gasp, and she is enfolded tightly in old Marie's arms. "Thank God," Marie says. "Oh, thank God, Nichole, _ma chère_. We had heard such things, such terrible things--they said Captain Morena, that devil, had sunk your ship, and sent you to the bottom of the sea--"

"As you can see, they were quite mistaken," Nichole laughs. "Morena should have known from experience that it would take a bit more than that to kill me, dear Marie. He was quite careless about it...oh, Marie, don't cry, _chère Tante_ \--"

" _C'est un miracle_ ," the old woman asserts fiercely. " _Un miracle!_ "

A sudden sadness washes over Nichole, a grief she's not acknowledged until now. Being held in Marie's encompassing arms is like being a little girl again, a girl who could weep, who could feel things other than anger or pride...She pulls away. "It would have been a better miracle," she says, more savagely than she intends, "had God seen fit to save my crew as well as myself." _And I would have been a better Captain_. Controlling herself, she touches Marie's arm in apology. "But let us not speak of that now. I have a patient for you, _Tante_ , and he may need all the miracles you can summon. But I need help bringing him to you. Is Georges here?"

She regrets the question as soon as she sees the look that passes over Marie's face. " _Non, ma fille_ ," Marie says gently. "He is in the churchyard, now."

Nichole stands still, stricken. Big, kind Georges, who called her his _petite princesse_ even as he taught her to walk and speak and fight like a lad... Marie's face blurs before her eyes. "It _has_ been too long," she murmurs. "When...?"

"Two years ago, when the fever was so bad in the Islands. All my tinctures and herbs could do nothing."

"Tante Marie, I am so sorry."

"It was his time, _ma chère_ , and my loss is old now." Marie takes her arm. "Yours is fresh. I am sorry to give such sad news. Come in, sit down by the fire, let us talk...look at you, you are soaking wet..."

"I have just climbed out of the sea," says Nichole. "No, _tante_ , I don't have time to sit, not yet. Are you alone here, then?"

"There is the hired boy, Pedro," Marie says. "He will help you with your friend. He is a good, strong boy."

"No doubt. But can he be depended upon to keep his mouth shut?"

For the first time, the significance of her visitor's disheveled state and dark clothing appears to dawn on Marie. "Nichole, my child...what have you done this night?"

"I've killed Captain Morena," Nichole says shortly. "The Spaniards think my friend and I are both dead, else we'd be fugitives from the noose. Now, can I trust the boy?"

" _Mon Dieu_!" Marie stares at her. "This is not one of your jokes--no, I can see that it is not. Yes. Yes, I think you can trust him. Pedro!" she calls up the stairs. _"¡Rapidamente, por favor!_ I want you to meet someone..."

There is a muffled thump from above, and a tousled youth appears on the landing, blinking sleepily. He is a skinny thing, all brown elbows and knees and wide dark eyes like a colt's, and he moves in a colt's haphazard fashion, as if he hasn't quite grown into his own limbs. He scrambles halfway down the stairs and then stops short, looking at Nichole with evident alarm. When he turns his head to look worriedly at Marie, Nichole sees the long, deep scar that disfigures the left side of his face, running from his left cheekbone to the corner of his mouth.

"It's all right, Pedro," Marie assures him, in Spanish. "This is Nichole, lad. She used to stay here, too, long ago."

"In that very same cubby as you do now, if I'm not mistaken," Nichole says, smiling. Then, when he continues to hesitate, she adds with some impatience, " _No tenga cuidado_ , boy. I don't bite, for pity's sake."

Marie shoots her a reproving glance. "You can't blame him for his caution, _ma chère fille_ , for I have never seen you look so disreputable! Come," she says to Pedro, going to him and tucking an arm about his shoulders. " _Nichole necesita ti ayuda. Su amigo está lastimado_."

Pedro nods, finally, and descends the staircase, sticking out one hand solemnly toward Nichole without a word. She regards him, bemused, and shakes the proffered hand. "Pleased to meet you, Pedro."

"Just do as Nichole asks, dear boy," Marie tells him. "Here, you'd better wear your coat, there's a nasty chill off the ocean tonight...and you, Nichole, you will catch your death out there in those wet clothes."

" _Tante_ Marie," Nichole says sternly. "You are a very foolish old lady. If Morena couldn't kill me, what makes you think a head cold will do me in--?" She breaks off then, for at the name Morena, Pedro goes very pale, seeming to retreat into himself even more. _Careless, D'Bouvoire, you're getting careless in your old age_. "You listen well, now, boy," she says, voice harsh. "If you say anything about me, or my friend, to anyone," she draws her finger across her own throat in a pantomimed warning, "I swear I'll--"

But Marie grips her shoulder, silencing her. "There's no need to threaten the lad. He will not say a thing."

"This is about life and death, _tante_ ," Nichole says, never letting her eyes stray from Pedro's face. The boy shrinks back, staring at the floor. "You never could believe ill of your charges, whether or not your faith was justified." She laughs; Pedro jumps. "I mean, look at me, for example...How do you know he won't talk?"

"Even if he could, he would not," Marie says. "But you need not trust my judgment. You see, Pedro is mute, _ma chere_. He has not spoken a word since I took him in, almost a year ago now."

Nichole stares. Then she begins to laugh again, more softly this time, though Pedro still watches her warily. "I'll be damned, " she says at length. "Not a hired boy at all, really, but another stray. Of course...How little things do change, Marie."

* * *

They find William Turner just as Nichole left him: sprawled unmoving in the mud beneath the docks. Relieved, she lets out a puff of breath she didn't know she was holding. "Thanks for not waking up, my friend," she murmurs, pressing two fingers to his throat and feeling the pulse there--strong enough, if a little too fast. "You'd do yourself no good and all sorts of harm wandering about in the state you're in..." She turns to Pedro. "Let's get him up," she orders. "I'll take his shoulders, you take his legs. Have a care now--"

Despite his skittishness and wide-eyed speechlessness, Pedro proves to be an able assistant, stronger than he appears and more quick-witted than Nichole expected. Nonetheless, Marie's cottage is some distance from the harbor, and lifting and carrying Will's limp body up the quay and through the darkened streets is no easy task for two persons of slight stature.

"Damn, but he's a heavy bastard," Nichole gasps, pounding on the door of the shop. "Hurry up, _tante_ Marie, are you asleep in there? I'm going to drop him in a second." The door swings open, and they stagger through. "Where should we put him? He's a filthy mess...worse than me, I'm afraid."

"Take him this way," Marie says, all business now that she has a patient to look after. "In the workshop. No one goes there now, after Georges...Except Pedro, of course, to look after his birds. But he will be safe there, away from prying eyes."

The unused workshop smells different than it once did; only a faint hint of smoke and flint remains, overlaid by the odor of dust and dovecote. They lay the unconscious man in the clean straw that covers the floor; Marie hangs a lantern on the wall and bends over him, clucking her tongue disapprovingly. "He is in a bad way, _oui?"_

"He was in Morena's clutches, _tante._ Doesn't that tell you all that you need to know?" Nichole folds her arms across her middle, pushing back old memories. "I think he has earned himself a broken rib, or two. Was clear enough that he was in a good deal of pain, even before he fainted on me."

"But it is more than a broken rib, if he is still insensible." Marie waves an imperious hand. "Pedro, fetch me clean cloths and the warmest blankets from the lean-to, please. Nichole, I set a kettle full of water to warm on the kitchen fire when you left, if you would bring it here for me. Oh, and another lantern, the one that hangs by the back door—"

"Yes, _tante_ ," Nichole says hastily. Pedro has already vanished in pursuit of blankets. But Nichole finds herself lingering at the doorway, watching Marie wiping the dirt from Will Turner's flushed face and wondering at herself for it.

 _If there's anything to be done, Marie will do it,_ she thinks, and frowns when a pang of worry jolts her at the thought that there may be nothing to be done. Then Marie lifts her head, noticing her still standing there, and Nichole turns away from the old lady's piercing glance, betaking herself with alacrity to the kitchen.

 _Why does this stranger's fate matter to me so?_ she demands of herself severely, plucking the kettle from the fire. _He is no one to me. Why did I feel compelled to rescue him?_

She tries to tell herself it has everything to do with Mrs. Elizabeth Turner, with the tremor in the girl's voice when she spoke of her husband. But it is not Elizabeth's fair, shadowed visage that comes again and again to mind, but William Turner's face, suffused with rage and grief, as he flung himself at Francisco Morena.

_I have killed many a man who wished to live, without a second thought; now I am trying to save the life of a man who wished to die._

She laughs aloud at the irony; startled by the sound, the handsome orange tomcat curled up by the fire shoots her an aggrieved look and stalks off toward the pantry.

"You're quite right," she tells it. "That's more than enough of this nonsense."

But Marie's orders are not to be countermanded. Reluctantly, she collects kettle and lantern and returns to the workshop.

"He is fevered," Marie announces upon Nichole's entry, answering a question the younger woman hasn't voiced. "Very warm. Too warm. And see—"

She brushes back the dark, still-damp hair, and Nichole realizes that it is matted not with mud but with dried blood. The wound looks swollen and angry around the broken skin. Nichole remembers the butt of a rifle, rising and falling.

"This should have been tended to." Marie shakes her head, swears in French. "Those idiot bastards. But I will see to it, and the ribs as well. Nichole, if you would--?"

Nichole nods, drawing her knife; Pedro shrinks back, and she can't resist favoring the lad with her most feral smile before focusing on the task at hand. Kneeling by Will Turner's prone body, she carefully slices apart the fabric of his shirt and jacket, pulling the cloth back and away from the muscled torso to reveal a large, ugly bruise purpling along his right side.

Marie prods lightly at the bruised area; even under her skilled fingers, Will moans a little in his fevered sleep, his head moving restlessly from side to side. "Ah." She lays one hand on his forehead until he calms again. "You were right, _ma fille._ "

"Is it very bad?" She keeps her tone disinterested, but she can't help asking.

"He will live; if the fever breaks...He seems hale enough otherwise."

Straightening, Nichole steps away. "Let's get it seen to, then, so he can be on his way."

"Ah, but he surely is very fine-looking, my dear." Marie twinkles up at her. "Are you certain you do not want to keep him?"

"Marie!"

"Never mind then. But only time will heal these hurts, with proper care and better luck than he has suffered so far." As she begins to clean and dress the cut on the injured man's head, she adds, "You will be watching over him tonight, for young limbs will find better rest on the ground than my old bones. Pedro will make up a pallet for you." Her sly twinkle returns. "After all, you know the rules. This fugitive is your stray to look after, and not mine, my dear."

* * *

Later, when she is somewhat cleaner and drier—save for her hair, which is still damp and which, despite vigorous rinsing with Marie's herbal soap, still smells faintly but unmistakably of harbor mud—Nichole is too tired to think much of Pedro's unexpected presence in the workshop room, nor of the guilty, startled look he gives her as she enters. The boy jumps to his feet and backs up hurriedly, before making for the door at an almost-run.

She watches him go, thinking that she must ask Marie more about the youth's history in the morning. Perhaps his odd behavior will make more sense then, and she will be able to determine the nature of the curiously intent expression she glimpsed on his ruined face as he crouched by Will Turner's side.

 _Probably charged with first watch over the invalid, and scared to death of me already,_ she decides. _Of me, and likely every girl under the age of fifty._ He seems the type, although it's true, too, that she hasn't exactly been soft with the lad since her arrival.

She tries and fails to stifle a jaw-cracking yawn. It's been a long...a _bloody_ long day, and it's beginning to catch up to her, although the full import of all that has happened, all that she has accomplished, has yet to sink in fully.

Francisco Morena is dead. After so many years. Her revenge is hers at last, and her justice.

_Took you long enough, didn't it?_

She sinks down on the little pallet that's been laid out a few feet from the patient's own, presses her palms against her eyes. Once upon a time, she'd thought this justice, finally achieved, would be enough, would satisfy her rage, would make things right. Now, the rage has burned out and left her empty, and all the wrongs of years past are still wrong.

Marie has always hated Morena, for reasons much like Nichole's own, and even on Nichole's behalf. But Nichole finds herself praying that her _tante_ will never know just how many men her _petite fille_ has caused to die today, and many a day previously, for the sake of vengeance; will never know that Nichole barely remembers their faces any more, their names, or much at all about them save the ways and means of their disposal. It is not the way Marie taught her, to have no regard for a life or for a death.

A slight noise pulls her from her grim reverie. Will Turner shifts in his makeshift bed, muttering something. A word, a name. Nichole sits up, watching him, but he does not wake; he is dreaming, or delirious, his brow knotted as if he feels the pain of his wounds even in his sleep. His lips move again; she leans closer, listening.

"My 'lizbeth..."

"Ah, you poor fool," she whispers. _She's yours no more; was never so, most likely. A girl like that takes no better to chains and vows than a wild hawk to jesses._

But for just a moment, her hand hovers over the sweat-beaded forehead, perhaps even rests there very briefly. Presently the sick man's restlessness seems to pass, his frown relaxing, his shallow breaths deepening; and she knows it is not her touch he feels, but the ghost of another's. With a small, wry smile, she sits back on her heels, again contemplating him, marking the tanned, boyish features, the sunken shadows under his cheekbones. He must be a man of at least five-and-twenty years, but asleep he looks impossibly young, even with the two days' worth of beard on his chin. Yet this man is a ship's captain, and a lady's husband; blood-enemy of her blood-enemy, fellow fugitive, and friend of the British Royal Navy. An enigma, like her impulse to pull him along with her in her flight from _La Venganza_.

She herself has begun to relax at last, stretching her legs out and propping her head on her hand, when something stirs just outside the pool of lamplight. She stiffens, her fingers instantly seeking out the knife she's stowed under her lumpy pillow. But the intruder is only the small grey cat who greeted her earlier. It pads over to her, sniffs at the blankets, and installs itself in the hollow formed by the crook of Nichole's knee, where it begins industriously to wash itself.

"I don't think you are allowed in here," Nichole tells it, with an eye to the faintly burbling dovecote. The cat pauses in its ablutions to give her a limpid look of pure innocence. Nichole scowls at it, but finds herself too bone-weary to argue, even with a creature which cannot actually speak.

And perhaps justice, or vengeance, has its reward in the end. For after a time, Nichole D'Bouvoire, who has long refused to share her sleeping-chamber with anyone—even her lovers, occasional and otherwise—lays her head down and sleeps without nightmares, for the first time in a very many years.

* * *

The first time she awakens, in the pale dim light of very early morning, Elizabeth finds herself tangled up in Jack Sparrow: one tanned, tattooed arm draped over her, his hand half-cupping her breast as if by instinct, his even, slow breath against her shoulder. Half-conscious, she curls closer into him, and is rewarded by a drowsy, approving rumble at the back of her neck; his fingers stray from her breast to her own hand where it lies on the counterpane, and covers it, though his breathing tells her he has not woken at all. She lies still then, willing him not to rouse further and herself to sleep again, carefully keeping her mind blank of everything but this moment, this waking, his warmth and scent surrounding her; blank of its meaning, its reasons and consequences. He is her anchor in this place; without his weight and pull, she fears she might float away and be lost forever.

She thinks that this is why, when she next wakes and he is no longer beside her—the big bed empty and cold somehow, though the air in the cabin is warm—she panics and struggles upward through a sea of soft sheets (too soft; he must have stolen them from some unlucky lord or dignitary), crying out, "Jack!"

He is there, after all; seated at the table in nothing but braids and breeches, clutter swept away; at her outburst, he glances up from the large chart spread out before him in the cleared space. "Aye? What is it, then?"

"Sorry," she mutters, avoiding his gaze. "It's just...I thought..." She presses her palms against her closed eyelids. "You were gone."

She doesn't hear him rise and come round the table to the bed, so she starts away from his light touch at first. He brushes a tangle of hair out of her face, takes hold of her wrists to gently but inexorably pull her hands from her face. "No, love," he says. "I'm not going anywhere." He chuckles, but she can plainly hear the concern in his voice. "At least, nowhere you're not going, too. 'Tis my ship you're on, y'know."

"I feel as if I don't know anything anymore. As if nothing in my life is sure, nothing is solid..." She looks down at his hands, now enfolding hers. _Nothing, except this._ "Jack...what happens now?"

"That," he says, lifting one of her hands to his lips, with just a ghost of a roguish grin, "is entirely up to you, m'lady."

"You know what I mean," she says, stubbornly, though suddenly very aware that she is naked save for his shirt, and he save for his breeches; and that sometime during the past night she has left behind any shyness or shame she would have had in that knowledge. "What do we do? Where do we go?"

"Why, wherever we want to go, of course," and that little smile plays round his mouth again.

"Away," she says, and her own passion startles her. "I want to go far away from here. And keep going. Maybe forever..."

Jack's expression changes; she thinks she glimpses surprise and hurt on his face before he smoothes it away, his dark eyes hardening. "Well, if that's what you wish, Mrs. Turner." Getting to his feet abruptly, he returns to the table to stare down at his charts, his back to her. "I can arrange passage for you to England easily enough."

She stares at him; then realization strikes. "Jack, you're a damned bloody fool," she says, with a shaky little laugh.

His own laugh is harsh and short. "Aye, you're dead right about that, lass. And never more than just now."

"Jack... " She unwinds herself from the sheets and pads barefoot across the cool boards to him to take his arm; he stands still but for his long fingers, tracing a random, graceful course across the Atlantic. "I have no desire to return to England. There is nothing more for me there than in Jamaica. I only want to go far away from...from what I've known...To piece together whatever happiness I can. To make a new life, see new things." She hesitates, rushes on. "With...with you. I'd like to stay with the _Pearl._ As long as you will permit it. If you will--"

But he turns to her then, and she sees what is in his eyes and falls silent.

"You'll have to earn your passage," he says roughly. "Same as the rest. No special privileges, savvy? The crew won't have it. Birthright means nothing on a pirate ship."

"Of course," she says, and her heart beats hard in her chest; he's looking at her, like...she hardly knows what that look means, but she thinks she's seen it before. It's very like the way he looked at the _Pearl,_ watching it sail into Tortuga harbor in the light of morning. "The last thing I need now is to be idle. If I work hard enough, I won't have time enough to think...about things."

He frowns. "It's hard, physical labor we're speaking of here, and I can't imagine you ever having call to perform the like. So you must be sure. Are ye sure?"

"I'm sure," she says. "I'm stronger than I look, you know."

"When it comes to that," says Jack, gravely, "I believe you are, Elizabeth. And I, for one, never doubted it."

He's giving her that look again; she flushes, looking away from him and down at the parchments spread out across the table. "What's all this?"

"All what--? Oh! Right." He flutters a vague hand over the mess. "Truth be told, I've been finding the Caribbean a bit small of late...Come, have a look."

She leans over the table, aware of his proximity, his bare arm close to hers. "These are maps of the East Indies."

"Aye," he says. "Thought we might take a holiday of sorts. A pleasant jaunt around the Horn. So, what say you?"

"Aye, Captain Sparrow," she says. Her smile is real, if small, and for a moment, the drag of sorrow upon her lessens a little. She thinks that one day, not soon, but foreseeable yet, she might feel joy again. She tries not to think that hope betrays Will's memory.

"Excellent," Jack says, and pulls her into his arms.

When he has finished kissing her, in a manner not entirely befitting a captain's behavior towards a member of his crew, and when she can speak again, she says, "Jack?"

"Aye?"

"Will there be pillaging?"

"Aye. Pillaging, plundering, a bit of looting and rifling, and even, perhaps, a general not giving of hoots. You don't mind, do you?"

"Not in the least. Do I get my own sword and pistol?"

"If you can adequately demonstrate that you know how to use them without hurting yourself. Or me." His grin is pure mischief. "And only if you promise Uncle Jack that you will be very, very good, obey your Captain, and otherwise behave yourself like a proper little pirate lass."

"Jack!"

"Ow. Violent—and, may I say, undeserved—retribution against said Captain will _not_ be tolerated, missy." He scowls theatrically down at her. "Don't think, just because this happens to be a pirate ship, that we don't know the meaning of discipline. I could have you whipped for that, I'll have ye know."

"You wouldn't dare."

He raises an eyebrow. "Wouldn't I?"

She has never yet been quite prepared for the speed at which he can move when he wants to. In an instant, he has her pinned between his body and the hard edge of the table. "That's a careless challenge to put to the likes of me, my girl," he purrs into her ear.

"Jack Sparrow!" She tries to squirm away, but as usual, his grip is inexorable. "You are enjoying this far more than can possibly be considered seemly."

"No more so than you, I suspect," he says; and though he keeps his face stern, laughter sparks in his eyes, and his hands have found their way under her shirt to her skin.

Her punishment, when it comes, is not one well-calculated to deter wrongdoing; and it is not long before Jack's charts are unceremoniously relegated to a jumble of parchment and foolscap on the cabin floor, while the table is put to more urgent and much less nautical use.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Deepest and most sincere thanks to all who have come this far with me. Only a few chapters remain to be told; but the truth is that the author would never have gotten to this point without you, the readers and reviewers. So, all you who have laughed, cried, stayed up past your bedtimes, left homework undone, sent me multiple emails begging for updates, and generally flattered me far beyond what I deserve, I dedicate this story to you. Yes, each and every one of you. You know who you are.**


	28. Safe Harbor

**Chapter XXVII.  
** **Safe Harbor**

_Some think to lose him  
_ _by having him confined  
_ _some do suppose him  
_ _poor thing, to be blind;  
_ _but if ne'er so close ye wall him  
_ _do the best that you may,  
_ _Blind Love, if so ye call him  
_ _will find out his way._

\--"Love Will Find Out the Way"

* * *

Jack has left Elizabeth in his cabin while he goes about the business of the _Black Pearl_ , stopping by the galley to ask that some food be brought to her; he does not intend to put her to work under Anamaria's eye today. In fact he is already wondering if her stated desire to sign on as crew is anything more than a mere fancy, and wondering too how many days or hours of thankless labor it will take before she changes her mind. He supposes that he had best try the experiment before they leave the West Indies; but at the same time he catches himself putting off the inevitable, if only to preserve the time they might have together, and he curses himself, again, for a fool.

It is in this uncomfortable state of mind that Gibbs finds him, requesting "to put a word in your ear about the young lady, Cap'n"; which word, once told, does nothing whatsoever to improve his mood. So, when he strides across the deck and flings open the Great Cabin door— _his_ cabin door, he reminds himself irritably—it is with rather more force and noise than strictly necessary; and the young lady jumps and stares like a rabbit at the crash, which annoys him even further. _He_ knows that she is no shrinking violet, and if she continues to act as such, he resolves to keelhaul her himself. Or at least slap some sense into her.

"What's this I hear from Gibbs about you sending back your breakfast?" he demands, looming over her. At least she doesn't cringe, only looks affronted. He wouldn't be able to bear it if she cringed.

"I wasn't hungry."

"Not hungry, eh? Well, if you're still fixed on crewing up with us, Lizzie, you'd best get accustomed to eating when food's set before you. I've no use for a weak chit who's like to faint away if she works overlong in the sun."

"I wouldn't faint!"

Good; still indignant. "See that you don't," he rejoins. "I'll have Ana toss you overboard if I catch you at it."

She scowls at him; but when Gibbs comes in with a fresh tray laden with bread, cheese, salt pork, and an apple from the barrel he keeps to spite Barbossa's ghost, she sets to willingly enough under his watchful eye.

"That's better. Would you like some rum to wash it all down? No--? Well, one can't have everything, I suppose. No harm in trying, eh?"

She doesn't even smile, but instead sets down her bread and looks up at him seriously.

"Jack, may I ask a favor of you?"

"Anything, my own, provided it does not involve making nice with your pet Commodore again. I've had quite enough of that for at least another three years, thanks _very_ much."

"No-o-o, not exactly. But..."

"Not liking the sound of this, love. What is it, then?"

"It's my father," she says miserably. "He thinks I'm in a convent. He'll expect me to write, and when I don't, he'll worry."

"He might, at that. But what has that to do with me, pray?"

"I just...I don't want him to think that I've died." Her eyes are pleading. "Could you—I mean, can _we_ stop in Port Royal before we sail for India?"

"No," Jack says, more harshly than he means to, because he wants to say yes to those eyes—and to that "we"!—and is impatient with himself for it. "We cannot just 'stop off' in Port Royal, Lizzie."

"Why not?"

"The _Black Pearl_ is not your personal ferry boat, m'lady. You heard the Commodore! Just because you're on board doesn't mean the _Black Pearl_ won't be pursued and blown into little shreds by His Majesty's Navy. Especially as no one but Norrington _knows_ you're on board."

"But—"

" _But_ I can't ask the crew to take such a risk, and you haven't the right," Jack says, overriding her. "Why this sudden attack of conscience, anyway? You seemed quite assured that your father would 'get over it' last night, if I recall rightly."

"I was distraught!" she cries. "I wasn't thinking. I was selfish..."

"And it's selfish you're being now, darlin'. No, listen to me! You have expressed a wish to become a member of this crew, and as such, I cannot be seen to favor you above the others. Ana and Gibbs, they wouldn't mind, but the rest of the men are not your friends, or your servants. They are your shipmates and your equals, and you owe the same duty to them and to the ship as they do to you."

"I know that," she says, sulkily, but her gaze slides away from his.

"No, you don't, love." Naturally; a privileged life doesn't teach such niceties. He casts a sardonic glance upwards at whichever power of fate or chance has seen fit to make him her tutor before proceeding with the lesson at hand. "You can't have both worlds. You can't be both a pirate lass and a governor's daughter." He gestures sharply, silencing her protest. "You have to choose, one or t'other. You've thrown in your lot with me, and that means you can't just drop by the old _pater_ 's mansion for a spot of tea and touching family reunion, at least not without getting the rest of us shot to pieces or tossed in gaol."

"And if I wasn't a member of the crew?" There is a challenge in her tone. "What are my choices then, Jack?"

"Then?" He shrugs. "Easy enough, m'lady. If you like, you _can_ change your mind. I will take you home straightaway, and you can tell your Da that I kidnapped you and kept you to feed my own unspeakable appetites, or whatever tale strikes your fancy. It'll only improve my reputation. But I can't hang 'round playing hide-and-seek with Norrington's precious Navy while you have your little visit."

"So you don't care if I stay or go," she flashes. "I understand that, Jack, I know I'm more a burden to you than anything. A woman on board is a liability. Even Gibbs will tell you so, if you ask him! Why didn't you just hand me over to James when you had a chance? It would surely have been _easier_ , would it not!"

"Aye, lass," he says, resigned. It's a conversation he's been hoping to avoid, but she _would_ bring it up, wouldn't she? Not in the girl's nature to let a thing like that be. "It would have been a damn sight easier for both of us, I'd wager."

"Then why?" she insists.

"'Twas not my choice to make," he answers.

But the truth roughens his voice, and she says, triumphant, "You're a liar, Jack. It's your ship. You're the Captain. You could have rid yourself of me and assuaged your conscience as well. And don't go claiming you haven't got one, because I know you _do_ —at least when it doesn't benefit you not to!"

She means to force him to a declaration; well, he'll be damned if he gives her one, when they both know well enough that her presence in his bed this past night was evidence of no more than her need for warmth and comfort. _Remind me that I want to live,_ she said then, and he'll be her remembrance if she asks it; but more he cannot— _will_ not—be, and that he must remind himself. "Aye, it _is_ my ship," he snaps, suddenly irritated beyond all reason. "You're here upon my forbearance, and you'd best not forget it. Do you really think, Lizzie, that because I've bedded you a time or two, because I permitted you to sail with us, I am now to be your willing slave in all things? Because if so, you've a thing or two to learn about pirates, my dear. And men, if it comes to that."

She flushes, drawing back from him. "No, I don't think that," she says, low. "Jack, that's not—"

"Isn't it?" When she does not reply, he goes on, voice hard, "Consider, madam. I have already put this crew in enough danger on what appears to them to be your whim alone, and if I continue to do so without regard for their opinion or their right to get paid, I will become a very unpopular captain very quickly. And when they maroon me on some island with no food, no water, a pistol, and only one shot, you'd best pray they decide to maroon you along with me, because while most of my men are good men at heart, they are all pirates and are, with a few exceptions, wont to think of woman-flesh as another sort of treasure to plunder. Savvy?"

Elizabeth is silent for a moment, eyes wide. He feels a pang of regret for speaking so harshly, but he hasn't told her more than the plain truth; it's one that she must learn, if she truly wants this life, one that he had to learn the hard way. A pirate ship's a certain kind of democracy, in theory, like that of the ancients: the sort in which getting voted out of office means being thrown to the lions in the Coliseum. Metaphorically, at least.

"Jack, I'm sorry," she says at last. "I didn't think—"

"No," he says, his anger draining away as suddenly as it overtook him. "No, I wager you didn't. You usually don't think, do you? You just rush headlong towards whatever it is that you want, using whatever means necessary, and do your thinking afterwards."

She gives him a weak smile. "Ever since I was very small, I'm afraid."

"Hurricane Lizzie. And Lord help anyone who gets in your way, eh?"

"I remember you once said we were like two peas in a pod, that way," she points out.

"Ah." He takes her hand, raises it to his lips; the gesture, he knows, is by way of being a tacit apology, and she seems to accept it as such. "But I learned long ago to do my thinking first whenever possible. It's not so useful, afterwards."

"You mock me, Jack." But her smile is easier this time; and when did he begin counting his success according to her smiles?

"Aye," he agrees, unrepentant. "But never more than you deserve, I promise you. And have no fear, m'lady. We'll see about getting word to your father concerning your whereabouts. Shouldn't be too difficult, though I can't speak for its effect on the old man's constitution. He doesn't suffer from a weak heart, I hope."

"Father has a remarkably strong constitution," says Elizabeth, with dignity. "He never takes ill."

"I imagine he must, with you for a daughter! Still, how he survived your fancies and follies for twenty-three years remains a mystery. I daresay he'll be relieved in his heart of hearts. You'll be the death of me yet, whilst he enjoys a peaceful and well-earned retirement. Fortunate man!"

"Wretch!" she counters, but mirth sparks in her eyes. "Just for that, I've a mind to go home after all, and leave you to your peace."

"What, and cut off your nose to spite your face? You'd be bored silly, just as before, and you and I both know it." He reaches out, traces the line of her jaw with one finger; she leans into his touch, and a little jolt of desire arrows through him. "You're not fit for that life. And that life's not fit for you."

"It might have been," she says, with a quirk of her lips. "Had I never met you...You've ruined me, Jack Sparrow, and I shall never be happy in a respectable life again."

"Ruined you, eh? Oh, I like that—! But no. You were never meant for a small life, Lizzie," he murmurs, and bends to kiss her mouth.

"Jack," she protests, laughing as she pushes him away. "Don't you have work to do?"

"I do, if it comes to that," he says. "Come on." He pulls her to her feet. "Are ye ready to go on deck and be sworn in as crew before my lot of scoundrels, then?"

"I am," she says, and follows him into the sunlight.

* * *

Waking comes slowly for Will Turner, accompanied by the soft cooing of doves from somewhere above him and the dust-and-sunlight scent of clean straw. And, for the first time in a long while (how long? He finds he cannot be sure) the absence of sick agony. His head feels almost clear, and his other injuries have subsided from a haze of pain to separately identifiable and endurable aches.

He opens his eyes, squinting past the bright shaft of light angling in from a high window into the long-cross beams of the ceiling; he's in an old barn, perhaps, for the clean-straw scent mingles with the musk of long-ago livestock. It's the comforting aroma of a simpler life, and for an instant he's a boy again, lying in the stable loft adjacent to Brown's smithy, where he would hide from his master's more foul moods and whisper his youthful woes into the patient ear of the smith's donkey. Especially after he had been forbidden to see Elizabeth again, because she was becoming a lady and he was still only a blacksmith's boy...

His sleepy peace dissolves at the thought. For his fragmented memory presents him suddenly with an old enemy's scornful face, and those terrible words spoken softly, triumphantly:

 _She_ _is beyond your reach, mi amigo. Forever_...

Oh, God. _Elizabeth._

How could he have forgotten?

The familiar weight of grief and despair takes hold of him; he realizes hazily that he's been dreaming it for days, while he's lain here wracked by pain and fever. And before that, on the fateful voyage to Hispaniola toward what he'd believed to be his doom and his redemption.

But it has turned out all wrong. For he is still alive and his worst fears realized, the wages of his sins visited upon the woman he meant to save and protect. His life should have been given for hers. Not the other way around...

"No," he mutters aloud, and struggles to push himself upright, ignoring the pain that flares in his right side.

But a capable hand plants itself against his chest and presses him back down. "Not so fast, my friend." The woman's warm, amused contralto, flavored by a faint Gallic accent, seems familiar, but Will cannot quite place her. "A broken rib takes patience, I'm afraid, and you have broken not one, but two."

Will turns his head; she's kneeling by his side, dressed in shirt and breeches like a man, her thick russet braid swinging forward over one shoulder. Her face, too, is strangely familiar. "Who...?"

"Nichole," the woman says. "We've met. You had a nasty head wound at the time, which I suppose excuses your forgetfulness." She narrows her eyes, appraising him. "What _do_ you remember?"

The last thing he remembers is Francisco Morena's face. And he doesn't want to talk about that. Or anything at all, for that matter. He turns away, hoping she'll leave him alone.

She doesn't. " I know you've had a bloody rough time of it," she says, with some impatience, "but this is important. I'll start with the easy questions, yes? Do you know your name, at least? The year? The date...? How many fingers am I holding up?"

Feeling suddenly like an unprepared and rather grubby schoolboy, he answers her odd catechism grudgingly until she seems satisfied, although he can't tell her the exact date.

"You've lost a few days to shock and blood-poisoning," she says. "And truth be told, we almost lost you more than once in that time. You're lucky to be alive, Will Turner."

"Lucky--!" The word bursts from him before he can control himself. "You count me _lucky_?"

The clear green eyes regard him with detached interest. "So you wished _not_ to live, and were disappointed?" She—Nichole—is lifting his arm now, pressing two fingers to his pulse. "It seems I owe you an apology." Her touch is cool and sure; he thinks he remembers the same touch, as felt through the haze of delirium. Had she laid her palm against his forehead, along his cheek? Or had that been nothing but a fever-dream?

"You nursed me through the fever," Will says. "Why?"

Nichole raises an eyebrow. "That's a good question, considering the thanks I'm getting."

"I'm sorry," he says, but it sounds stiff even to his ears. "I am indebted to you. But I don't understand why you should bother. You don't even know me."

"No." She withdraws her hand. "I suppose I was inspired by the misbegotten idea that once you save a man's life, you are henceforth responsible for his existence." Sitting back on her heels, she adds wryly, "As it happens, that is also the reason I try not to make a habit of it. Saving people, that is."

Another memory comes floating to the surface; her face again, over Morena's shoulder. No kindness there then, just rage. Cold, murderous rage...

"You were aboard _La Venganza_ ," Will says slowly.

"Yes." Nichole's posture has changed subtly, tensed, her gaze grown sharp and intent; and suddenly he can see in her the woman who had dragged Morena's unresponsive bulk into the brig of his own ship, the Spaniard still conscious, paralyzed by some poison she had administered, his eyes wide with fear.

"You killed Morena."

"Yes," she says, and smiles. It isn't a nice smile. Will has been thinking that while she isn't beautiful, exactly—her features are a little too strong, her eyes too hard, her mouth too wide—she is certainly, well, _something_. But now he knows suddenly that she is, above all, dangerous.

The memory, now begun, cannot be stopped. She had soaked the straw in the cell with kerosene, and before she grabbed Will's arm to pull him up the companionway and out of the hold, she lit a match, and dropped it...

For though she'd worn a knife at her belt, she didn't give Morena the mercy of a swift death. She ensured that he would die by fire, first, before the flames reached the powder-magazine and blew his ship to pieces; that he would be forced to watch the flames creep closer, and know that it wouldn't be an easy end.

But it was a fitting one.

 _Captain_ Nichole D'Bouvoire, she calls herself. Who _is_ this woman?

" _You_ rescued me from that cell."

"If you intend to ask me why, again," she says brusquely, "please refrain. It was a foolish thing to do. But he hated you almost as much as he hated me, you see, and it seemed to me that any man he so hated probably deserved to live."

His laugh is harsh and painful. "You're right that it was foolish. A less deserving man would be difficult to find."

That cool green look again, taking his measure. "You judge yourself very cruelly, Captain Turner."

"You don't know what it is that I've done."

"Ah," she says. "You forget that I've spent the last three days at your sickbed, listening to your delirious ramblings. I think I know your story well enough."

"What did I say?"

Nichole's glance is amused. "Don't look so alarmed. A good deal of nonsense, mostly. But enough for me to understand that you take others' guilt upon your own shoulders all too willingly."

"I try to do right," he protests.

"Misguided nobility. Stubborn honor. I know the type," and her gesture is dismissive. "It's a fatal weakness, my friend, and this time it almost caught up with you."

"I live by my principles," he retorts, stung. "It's better than living as Morena lived, for vengeance and blood. As you live."

Those last words were a mistake, he realizes belatedly. And he has forgotten somehow that he is effectively at her mercy. When she moves, he thinks for one panicked moment that she intends to actually kill him.

But she rises to her feet instead, in one fluid motion. "So you would judge me, too." Controlled fury makes ice of her eyes, of her voice. "You have no right, Will Turner. You know nothing of me or how I live my life." Her fists clench at her sides. "I am not like him," she mutters, as if to herself. "I am _nothing_ like him..."

Without sparing him another glance, she turns on her heel and strides from the room.

* * *

Left alone in the dim, high-roofed space, Will has nothing else to do but look around him. The shape of the structure itself seems familiar to him, and when he sees the raised stone hearth on the outside wall with its fizz trough, the well-worn anvil beside it and the abandoned bellows crouching nearby in the shadows, he begins to understand why.

In a way, unexpectedly, he has come home to this strange place.

Some time later, he wakes from a light doze when the door to what he assumes is the main house opens. He half-hopes, half-fears it is Nichole, returning from wherever she stormed off to, but an elderly lady bearing a steaming kettle bustles through it instead, followed by several cats of various sizes and colors and a tall, gangly-limbed youth with a plate of food. The boy lays the plate by Will's side; he does not speak, but dips his head oddly so that his lank black hair flops forward to conceal his face, glancing sidelong at Will from beneath it before scuttling away again.

"Pedro!" calls the lady, but the boy is already gone. She clucks her tongue disapprovingly. "I do _not_ know what has gotten into that boy today. He is not usually so flighty."

She crosses the room to him, cocking her head to one side like a bird and regarding him with a bright, canny gaze. "Welcome back to the world, Will Turner," she says. "And how are you this morning?"

"Hungry," he says, casting a longing look at the food placed tantalizingly near his makeshift bed. "And I find that I am at a disadvantage. Everyone seems to know my name, while I know no one."

The old woman chuckles and kneels beside him, arranging cushions behind his shoulders so that he can sit up a little and eat without too much discomfort. "Well, you have met our Nichole already, I believe. I am her _tante_ Marie, and the young man you have just seen the back of is my assistant. And these—" she indicates the cats, who have stationed themselves around the room, observing them, and the food, watchfully— "These are my darlings, Josephine, Tig, and Simone. You will meet the rest if you stay here long." She pours him a cup of fragrant tea. "Drink this, _ma chère_. It is a restorative and will ease your pains."

"This building," Will says, between bites. "This was a forge once, wasn't it?"

Marie smiles sadly. " _Oui._ My husband Georges, he was a blacksmith. He is gone now, but I keep the smithy." She shrugs. "I find I do not want to sell it, whatever the profit. And Georges had no apprentice—not after Nichole left us."

Will glances quickly at her, startled. "Nichole? You mean—Miss D'Bouvoire was a blacksmith's apprentice here?"

"For a short time. She didn't take to it, but she wished to learn a man's trade, so Georges obliged her, as he did in all things. You see, we never had a child of our own, so when Nichole came to us—it was like a gift from heaven. For a little time, at least."

"But she left."

"She was always a restless one. A fighter." Marie sighed. "Georges taught her the use of the sword, as well, and she had a talent for it. I often wish that he had not done so—but _c'est la vie_. One cannot keep a child from doing what they are born to do."

Fascinated, Will says, "And was that what she was born to? How did she come to you?"

"As _une enfant perdue,_ an orphan. A stray, as Nichole herself would say." Marie rises, picks up his empty tray. "She was the daughter of a great family—the father had been a Marquis in France before they sailed to the Colonies. But then the Spanish came to Navidad—we called it Nativité, then—and Morena, he led them." She speaks thickly, as if through a bitter taste in her mouth, and she doesn't have to finish the story; Will knows how it ends.

"He killed them all, didn't he? Her entire family. That's why she hated him so."

" _Oui._ Every one, dead. And worse. She never told me, but others did, and the rest I could guess." The old woman takes a deep breath; Will sees that she has tears in her eyes. "Our Nichole, she escaped somehow—I told you she was a fighter—and a slave brought her to me, near death from the beating they had given her. It was through God's grace alone that she lived."

"And your healing skills, I'm sure."

"All my skills can do nothing, young man, without _la volanté à vivre_ , the will to live. Any other child, after what was done to her, would have died. But she—she was determined to survive."

"She's a strong woman."

"Very strong indeed. But have a care." The old woman pins him with a keen glance before she turns towards the door; and though they are not family by blood, he sees her resemblance to Nichole in that glance. "She still carries those scars, on her body and mind. It is why she keeps such distance. She does not like them to be seen or touched upon. I have told you her story as a confidence, so that you will understand; but best you do not speak of it, unless she speaks first."

"I would not use what you have told me to hurt Nichole, Marie," Will says, wondering as he does why the old woman thinks he warrants a warning on her adopted child's behalf. "I promise."

"You are a good man, Will Turner," Marie says. "I see that. And Nichole is a good woman, and I think you can see that, too."

She goes out, as quietly as she came in, and shuts the door behind her, leaving Will to puzzle over her meaning, in what she has said and in what she hasn't.

Marie returns again with more food and tea that afternoon; again, the boy Pedro shadows her warily. Seeing the scar he ducks his head to hide—cheekbone to lip, a long jagged tear—Will tries not to stare, stirred by another memory.

He couldn't be the same child. Not here, in this house. Or could he?

"Does the boy ever speak?" he asks Marie.

"No," she says, appearing startled by the abrupt query. "Not since he came to me. He understands us well enough, however."

Indeed, the boy has jerked his head up at Will's question; he seems alarmed, but stands irresolute, as if not sure whether to run away or stay and listen.

"There's a story there," Will says softly. "And I imagine you know it, Marie."

Her face darkens. "It is a sad story, lad."

"Like Nichole's?" He is almost eager to hear it, to know if his guess is correct.

" _Un enfant perdue? Oui._ Somewhat like." Marie glances toward the boy, as if requesting his permission; Pedro sketches a swift sign with one hand. She goes on, "I do not know the whole of it, for of course he cannot tell it to me. I know that he was beaten harshly by someone in his family, perhaps his father, for some act of disloyalty; I know not what. They had no use for him after that, so he was brought to me."

"And you gave him a place in your household," Will supplied; he's almost sure now that he has the right of it. Pedro must be the boy he remembers. _God, that scar._ Could there be another like it? But he conceals his thoughts, turning to Marie. "Do you do this often? Adopting the lost, I mean?"

"Why do you think I have so many cats?" Marie asks, twinkling. "Whenever someone here finds a creature that is hurt, or abandoned, they bring it here to me. Mostly I keep them by me, or they stay." She smiles and spreads her hands, a gesture of benevolent resignation. "None have seen enough care in this world; it is given to me to provide a little of what has been neglected. I do my best. It is all I can do, yes?"

"You're a good woman, Marie." He touches her hand. "We lost creatures all see it."

Marie laughs; the sound is tinkling and pure, surprising in a woman of her age. "Ah, but you are not my stray, young Will. Did Nichole not tell you? She is the one who plucked you out of the sea."

When she has gone back to the main house with the things from Will's dinner, Pedro lingers behind. Will calls him over to his pallet; after a moment the boy approaches uncertainly, eyes cast shyly down at the floor.

"You're his son, aren't you?" Will asks gently.

A quick tilt of the head, assent. The boy looks frightened.

"It's all right," Will says. "Your name was different then, but I remember you. The scar's my doing, I think." Pedro raises his hand to his face. "Yes, it is. I'm sorry about that. I tried to stay my hand, you know; but I wasn't fast enough."

The boy's remembering too; Will can see it on his face. There can be no mistake; this is Dominic, the son of Francisco Morena, who Will engaged for a short spell as a cabin boy on the _Lady Swann_. The boy who was intended to be a plant, a spy for his father. But nothing had turned out as intended for Dominic Morena.

In the moment of truth, when his father moved to strike Will down, the boy had leapt between them; and Will's attempt to parry Morena's blow caught Dominic across the face, while Morena's had knocked him to the floor. But Dominic's foolish act bought Will the time he needed to escape.

And Dominic, now Pedro, had paid the price.

Morena said his son had died, that Will had killed him; and Will believed him. He'd seen the boy fall. But what Morena must have meant was that Dominic was dead to him. Morena, who brooked no breach of loyalty...

_They had no use for him after that._

"He punished you for trying to protect me, didn't he?"

Pedro bites his lip, nods.

"I'm sorry about that, too. I never got a chance to thank you, lad. I owe you my life."

At this the boy bends his head—and smiles. The scar pulls his mouth sideways, a grotesque rictus, but the good side of his face fairly glows.

A thought occurs to Will, then. "Does _she_ know who you are? Captain D'Bouvoire?"

The boy shakes his head frantically.

"I thought she didn't. Well, don't worry. I won't tell her."

"Tell me what?" says an interested voice from the door.

Pedro jumps, blanches, and escapes past Nichole into the house. She watches him go, bemused.

"What an odd boy he is," she says. All her anger from their earlier interview seems to have dissipated. "Did he tell you all his secrets?"

"Very nearly," says Will, conscious of his newly given word. He has no idea how this volatile woman would react to the news that the offspring of her sworn enemy is being harbored under Marie's roof, and he doesn't intend to find out. He likes the boy; he did then, at the beginning of this nightmare, and he still does.

"A man-to-man conference, I take it. Don't worry," she says, parroting his words. "I won't ask."

"You're very kind," he says, smiling.

She raises an eyebrow. "I assure you you're the first to say it, my friend. How are you feeling?"

"As though I've been kicked in the ribs, but otherwise well-cared for." He hesitates; and takes the chance. "I'm sorry for my words earlier. They were...not kind."

"They were, however, true." In the shadows cast by the lamp, he cannot read her eyes, but her posture remains neutral, arms folded, pose relaxed; though he knows that calm, in her, can be misleading.

"Not entirely true."

"No," Nichole agrees. "Not entirely."

"Your enemy would not watch over a sick man while he sleeps, for example, to ensure that he doesn't die in the middle of the night."

Nichole shakes her head. "Marie told you that, did she?"

"Yes; but you told me first. So will you watch over me again, tonight?"

"If you wish," she says, then adds, acerbically, "Although if you find you need to take a piss, it's Pedro and _not_ I who will be helping you."

"Yes, ma'am," he avers, and glimpses her smile. It's swift, there and gone again, but real this time; not the cold and frightening expression that she wore earlier when she spoke of Morena. He thinks that she should smile thus more often. It becomes her, and inspires him to take another risk, one he's been warned against. "Nichole," he says softly. "May I ask you a question? You may choose not to answer, if you like."

She steps closer to hear him, tilts her head slightly, waiting.

"How did you survive?" he says. "What Morena did. How did you endure it?"

She goes still, and for a moment he thinks he's made another fatal mistake. But she does not sound angry; only resigned, and perhaps a little exasperated. "Marie told you that, too, I take it."

"She told me a little. Just that he...that you lost your family."

"He took everything I had," she says, and she's not looking at him anymore, but at the dust motes sparkling in the bar of sunlight, watching them as if she were reading her words in their patterns, telling someone else's story. "It was during the war. The Spanish took the town. My father was a landholder. They rounded up the men and shot them while we watched. The women...they were killed too, but not at first. After." Her voice is calm. She might as well be reciting a homily. "They used me with the rest. I was not quite thirteen."

"My God."

"God," snaps Nichole, "had nothing to do with it. Whatever Marie might say."

"I'm sorry," he says, feeling the inadequacy of those small words acutely.

"It was a war. War makes monsters of good men, and sets born monsters like Morena free." She lifts her shoulders, a small shrug. "All he left me was myself, and the thought of revenge." Her words take on a tone of bitter amusement. "You might say that I was too stubborn to die."

"And now?" he asks quietly. "Now that you've had your vengeance, and he his justice?"

"Now I have myself," she says, and her smile is still real, if laced with pain. "I have my life, and there are things in it that I love. It is enough." Her touch on his hand is brief and feather-light, so much so that he might have imagined it, if he had not seen her move. "It seems that I am not quite like him, in the end. One can always find other things to live for, Will Turner; and often when one least expects it. You will see."

"I am beginning to," he says, and smiles back at her; and she is right. For now, it is enough.


	29. Survivors

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Special Thanks:** To Sharon for the beta read and to ErinRua at BPS for explaining how a flintlock pistol _actually_ works. Bless you! Any remaining errors are mine alone.

**Chapter XXVIII.  
** **Survivors**

_Alongside, then, this strange vessel came.  
_ _"Cheer up," cried Jane, "we will board the same  
_ _we'll run all chances to rise or fall,"  
_ _cried this female smuggler,  
_ _cried this female smuggler, who never feared a ball._

\--"The Female Smuggler"

_She from her pillow gently raised  
_ _her head, to ask who there might be,  
_ _and saw young Sandy shivering stand,  
_ _with visage pale, and hollow eyed._

\--"Mary's Dream"

* * *

Days and nights pass swiftly for the crew of the _Black Pearl_. The work of a midshipman is hard, as Jack has promised, harder work than Elizabeth has ever done in her life, and she drives herself ruthlessly to accomplish all that is demanded of her, conscious of the Captain's eyes often upon her and determined to disprove Anamaria's doubting looks. When her watch goes below, Elizabeth curls up in her hammock and falls instantly into the deep, dreamless sleep of the sore, blistered, and bone-weary; but it is a wholesome weariness, of body rather than of heart, and besides she does not miss dreaming. Those first few nights, before Anamaria assigned her to a watch, were haunted with visions of flame and smoke and floating bodies. The bodies always wore her husband's face, with eyes that snapped open and stared accusation at her until she woke, gasping, to spend the rest of darkness listening to the rhythmic creaking of the ship, the steady breathing of the living _Pearl._ One might even exhaust oneself purposely to avoid such phantasms...

It occurs to her after some time, however, that the _Black Pearl_ is dawdling. It's been over a week since Jack announced his intent to sail for the East Indies, and the crew, put to a vote, has given their approbation. But while their course does seem to veer vaguely eastward, the fastest ship in the Caribbean adopts a pace that can only be described as leisurely. Clearly, Jack is in no hurry to leave the Islands behind just yet, and Elizabeth decides that he must be waiting for something. What that something is, she can only surmise, and amuses herself accordingly with this guessing game while engaged in her more tedious tasks: the Captain requires some arcane sign, perhaps, an albatross or a wind that smells of curry, the correct alignment of the stars, Advent, St. Elmo's Fire, Birnam Wood's arrival at Dunsinane—for who can tell with Jack Sparrow? Or perhaps he is waiting for his compass to swing round to find true North. In that case, Elizabeth thinks caustically, as she swabs the quarterdeck for the second time that day, they might wander about in the open sea between Hispaniola and Jamaica until the _Pearl_ falls to pieces under their feet and leaves them all to swim to India.

This mystery does not go long unsolved, after all. One morning Elizabeth awakens to a general hue and cry above; she emerges to find all watches on deck and a great many hands aloft. Even the _Pearl_ seems to have roused herself from lassitude, in full sail and moving at a fine clip that does much more credit to her abilities than her recent tendency to meander. Elizabeth catches sight of Jack at the lee rail, and goes to accost him with a boldness unbefitting of her new station.

"What's going on?" she inquires.

"Have a look." Jack hands her his spyglass and yields his space at the rail, pointing across the starboard bowlines, where a set of neat white sails can be seen floating just under the horizon. "Isn't she a beauty?" His breath is warm on her ear, his hand hovering over her hipbone; it's all she can do to keep the glass steady. "Outward bound and low on the draft. That's a Spanish merchantman, that is, and her holds fair bursting with swag."

She lowers the spyglass and tries to catch a glimpse of his face instead. "Jack, I'm not at all sure that I like this. You sound like you're planning something."

"Of course I'm planning something," Jack says. He is close enough that she can feel his excitement; his body fairly vibrates with tense anticipation. "When am I not? We're going to take her."

"Take her?"

"Aye, take her." His grin is golden, feral. "Well, you said you wanted piratin', love. Here's your chance. Where's that pistol I gave you?"

"It's in my cabin. Why?"

"Get it. You may need it."

Elizabeth turns uncertainly to look at him, but he is dead serious now, his attention fixed on the other vessel, intent as a hawk sighting its prey.

In the quarter-gallery she shares with Ana, a quick search discovers its object hidden like a deadly secret beneath her folded blanket. The weapon lies cold and heavy in Elizabeth's hand, gleaming dully in the gloom of the cabin. She stares at it for a moment before tucking it resolutely in her sash, next to the dagger she's taken to wearing in her waking hours.

Jack gave her the gun only a few days ago. He had beckoned her into the great cabin; she followed him, unsure as to his intent, her heart beating hard in her chest. They had not slept together since that first morning after Navidad, and he had made it clear to her that same morning what that liaison had been to him: _Do you really think that just because I've bedded you a time or two, I am now your willing slave? You've a thing or two to learn about pirates, my dear. And men, if it comes to that!_ The words had pained her more than she'd let him see, and she had pushed him away gently when he tried to kiss her; as if a mere kiss, even one of Jack's, could soften the sting of those words. Still, he often touched her casually when they found themselves together, tossing an arm round her shoulders or brushing his fingers through her hair, teasing her with laughing glances and murmured innuendo that made her color and stumble over her retorts. She knew it was her own choice that kept her out of his bed; she had only to speak, to take that one step closer, and he would be hers. She trembled at the thought.

This time, in his cabin, he did not touch her; only fixed her with one of his dark, impenetrable looks and then turned away, bending to unlock the sea chest he kept against one wall.

She peered over his shoulder as he rummaged through the chest, watching him cast aside bundles of rich cloth, bits of shine, and a surprising number of battered but well-thumbed books before he happened upon the item he wanted. When he glanced around, she stepped back quickly; he shut the trunk with a decisive motion.

"Did anyone ever tell you, Mrs. Turner," he said pleasantly, "that you are far too curious for your own good?"

"Oh, often," she said, but her gaze was fixed on the thing in his hands. It was a beautiful piece, slim-barreled and graceful, with an ornately carved ivory grip, but undeniably meant for use, not display.

"Don't look so jumpy, love," he said. "I'm not going to use it on you. This is for you to keep." When she did not reach for it, he took her wrist, placing the gun in her palm and closing her fingers over it with his other hand.

Another man would have given her flowers, she thought; but this was Jack, and it seemed strangely appropriate that he would offer such a gift, as dangerous and striking as the man himself. Holding it a little awkwardly, she said, "It's lovely. Thank you."

"It belonged to a lady, once," he said. "Only fitting that it should again."

She examined it dubiously, wondering, as she did so, what had become of its former owner. Better not to ask, perhaps. "Is it loaded?"

"Of course," he said, and frowned at her when she paled. "You've handled one of these before, haven't you?"

"No," she said reluctantly. "Only a musket, once or twice. Never a pistol."

He took it back from her. "Look. This is the hammer here. You draw it back, thus." In one smooth movement, he cocked the pistol, swinging his arm up to aim it at one of the unlit lamps on the wall, mimed pulling the trigger. "Bang." He thumbed the hammer carefully forward again so that it was no longer cocked, and handed it back to her. "Simple, eh?"

She looked down at the gun, back up at him, and laughed. "Oh, indeed, Captain Sparrow. Mere child's play."

"Very well," he said, and grinned. "We'll work on it." And they had; he'd insisted on showing her how to load it, how to take it apart for cleaning and put it properly together again, where to find extra shot and powder in the _Pearl_ 's magazine and in his cabin's private stores.

Now, the unfamiliar shape and weight of the firearm against her side both reassures and unsettles her. Adrenaline quickens her steps as she heads up the companionway and back to the main deck, listening to the shouts and cheering of the crew. Once topside, she has to jump out of the way as men pound down the steps to the gun decks; when she can, she runs to the side-rail, pulling herself up on the ropes to lean out.

They are almost upon their quarry, and she has turned to run, her sails full and taut before the wind and her crew scrambling like frantic ants. But the _Pearl_ is faster and lighter, unhampered by ballast or extra cargo, and gaining fast. Below her, Elizabeth hears the gun-ports sliding open, Anamaria shouting commands.

"Thrilling, innit?" Jack drawls, materializing beside her. "'Your very first sea-chase."

"Not my first," she says, thinking of another pursuit much like this one. The _Interceptor_ had fled like this other ship is fleeing now, with the _Pearl_ closing in behind her like a black wolf of the sea. But her lot had been thrown in with the pursued rather than the pursuer that time.

"Your first as a _Pearl_ , anyway," he corrects himself. He is standing close beside her, so that his shoulder presses lightly against hers; his glance is clearly meant to be casual, and almost succeeds. "You ready, Lizzie?"

"Yes," she lies.

"Good." His gaze flicks back out to sea. "We may see a bit of a battle today. Not the surrenderin' type, these chappies; they're like as not to fight if brought to bay."

He says it offhandedly, as if they're discussing meeting a friend for tea and gossip, or something equally inconsequential; but she knows him better now, and the twitch of his jaw and an unusual stillness of gesture give him away. "Why, Jack," she says softly. "You can't be—are you _nervous_?"

"Hush," he says. "I'm Captain Jack Sparrow, and I am never nervous."

"You are Captain Jack Sparrow, and you are a liar."

"Always get a bit keyed-up before a fight, Lizzie," he says, with a tight smile. "'And all the more so, this time, because there's more to risk."

He slips away from her side before she has a chance to respond to this, even if she knew how. "All right, ye rascals!" he calls. "Ready the chase guns! Gibbs! Get those blasted cullies moving! And lads, aim high and take her masts if you can! No call to save 'em, we've no need of trophies today!"

"Aye, just the swag!" Gibbs calls back with a chuckle, before bellowing out the orders to Ana and her gunners below. The _Black Pearls_ surge into hectic action with a roar. Ana's voice rises above the rest.

"One—two—three—FIRE!"

The boom of the forward cannons deafens Elizabeth momentarily. She leans out again, holding her breath as she waits for the inevitable impact; but their victim's stern presents a meager target, and most of the shot goes wide, although one rips through the gaff-rigging of her mizzen, ripping the ties asunder before splashing into the ocean beyond.

But the _Pearl_ is drawing ever nearer, and Jack's smartly timed orders soon bring her smoothly round on an angle, nearly perpendicular to her prey. Elizabeth glances aft, clinging to the lifelines as the ship cants and rolls, and sees Jack at the helm, laughing as he shouts, " _Now!_ "

It's an admirable maneuver, providing a broad target for the _Black Pearl_ 's bow-chasers while presenting the smallest possible target to the other's broadside. And Jack's crew are well-trained. While the Spaniards' first volley splashes into the waves around her persecutor, the _Pearl_ 's own onslaught explodes upon them with a vengeance. When the smoke clears, the other has lost her foremast, and a great hole gapes in her gun-deck. Her answering broadside is weak and disorganized, although one ball soars through _Pearl_ 's rigging, and a sailor, dislodged from his perch on the mainmast, falls to the deck with a cry.

Now the _Black Pearl_ too must turn, lest she ram herself full-on into her wounded quarry. They are now so close to the other ship that Elizabeth can read the painted name on the hull, just forward of where the hole gapes in her side. She is the _Carolina,_ once a placid and capable lady, now crippled and floundering.

But before Elizabeth can take in any more details, a harsh voice snaps, "Get down, you fool!" and she is grabbed, bodily, from behind; just in time, for a loud popping sound heralds a hail of bullets and grapeshot from the merchantman. Elizabeth, landing hard on the boards, struggles up to face her assailant.

It is Jack, of course, and he is furious. "You made a fine target up there!" he growls. "Do you _want_ to get shot? Is that it?" As he is wont to do in such a mood, he takes her by the shoulders and shakes her. "Do I have to lock you in my cabin, Lizzie? Because be assured I _will,_ if necessary."

She arches an eyebrow at him. "Playing favorites, Captain? I hardly think I was in more danger than _they_ are," and she nods in the direction of the party now making ready to board the _Carolina;_ grapples and ropes fly across the short gap between the two ships, followed, with a great shout, by a good number of the _Pearls_ themselves. "I'm just another member of the crew, remember? No special treatment, you said."

"Aye," he says, with exaggerated patience. "But they, my dear Elizabeth, are experienced fighters. You, on the other hand—" he pauses, then adds, low and fierce, "I will not lose you on your first raid, love, merely because you stubbornly refuse to act according to the sense with which I assume you _were_ born. So please, do me a kindness." He releases her, looking down at her somberly for a moment. "Will you at least _try_ to stay out of trouble?"

And before she can answer, before she can even nod, he is gone.

* * *

Captain Sparrow has, it turns out, guessed correctly at the quality and spirit of their opponents' resistance; the _Carolina_ 's crew does put up a fight, one that boils over from her decks onto the _Black Pearl_. Gibbs quickly collars Elizabeth and assigns her to an inglorious duty he calls "chop an' drop": armed with a large knife, she patrols the rail on the forward rail, sawing away at any ropes that have enemies at their other ends. Mindful of Jack's admonishment, she tries to keep her head down, but manages to narrowly miss being skewered by a flying grapple; she does, however, earn the satisfaction of dropping her near-murderer into the sea, and smiles grimly when his shout of surprise ends abruptly in a splash.

Then, through the chaos and smoke and press of bodies, she suddenly sights Jack, locked not five yards away from her in a heated contest of blades with the other Captain. He appears to be making a good account of himself, teeth bared, a fierce light glowing in his eyes as he dances out of death's reach. Elizabeth finds herself watching him, fascinated; his fey grace is displayed to full advantage as he dodges and parries a vicious rain of blows. The other man is bigger and perhaps, she admits to herself, a more expert swordsman, but Jack knows how to use his lighter weight to his advantage—and his quick tongue, for he keeps up a steady barrage of taunts and mockery.

"Now I _know_ that's not the best you can do, is it?" he is saying. "Oh, it is! Tsk. I'm beginning to think you're not cut out for this sort of thing. Here's an idea, mate: why don't you chuck it all in, eh?"

"Never," snarls his opponent, and redoubles his efforts.

Jack jumps sideways handily and returns the favor, driving the other man back as many steps as he just earned. "C'mon, my good man," he says—a little breathlessly, Elizabeth notices, though they have circled until his back is to her and she cannot see his face. "Lay down your weapon, and I'll convey you to the next port pretty as you please—only in the brig, you understand, but it's quite a nice little brig, really—and you can start a lovely quiet life as a clerk or a grocer or the like. What say you to that?"

But Elizabeth has no opportunity to hear what the _Carolina_ 's Captain has to say to that, because a furtive movement in her peripheral vision catches her eye. Another _Carolina_ has gained the deck of the _Pearl_ while her attention was diverted from her task: a slender, sallow-skinned man with a hard, cunning face under his black turban. His keen gaze is fixed on the battle transpiring before him, and Elizabeth thinks she sees him exchange a meaningful glance with his Captain. And then, as the two men lock blades again and hover for a few moments, straining in place, the Moor raises his hand; and she sees the pistol in it, aimed directly at the back of Jack Sparrow's skull.

She doesn't even think; there's no time. She just yanks her own ivory-handled pistol from her sash, aims willy-nilly, flicks the hammer back, and pulls the trigger, just as Jack showed her.

It's a lucky shot at point-blank range; if it wasn't, she thinks later, her first raid with the _Pearl_ might have gone very differently. As it happens, however, the kick of the little gun jerks her arm upward, and the bullet, aimed at the man's chest, strikes its target in the side of the head instead. Elizabeth watches the blood bloom above his ear, his look of ludicrous astonishment before he crumples to the boards of the _Pearl_. The report echoes in her ears; she barely hears Jack's opponent cry out in dismay, or Jack's triumphant shout as the other man's sword goes spinning out of his grasp to lodge itself, quivering, in the bulkhead. She stands still, staring blankly down at the weapon in her hand.

After seeing their Captain and his first mate go down, the rest of the _Carolina_ 's crew surrenders quickly. Jack—having dispatched the captives to the brig and his men to their prize to liberate her cargo—crosses the deck and gently takes the pistol from Elizabeth's suddenly shaking fingers.

"You all right, love?"

"I killed a man," she says. "He's dead. I shot him."

"And a good job you did, or so Gibbs tells me, as he was about to do the same to me."

She turns on him. "You don't understand! I've never killed anyone before. I fought Barbossa's men...but that wasn't the same. They were cursed, and I knew they'd get right back up again. Oh, Jack—"

His face creased with concern, he wraps one arm round her waist; she buries her face in his shoulder. "Breathe, love," he advises her. "Cotton! Marty! Get rid of that body, will you? It's mucking up my nice clean deck. Handsomely now, gents." He guides Elizabeth over to a row of cargo crates and seats her upon one.

"I'm sorry," she mutters, ashamed.

"Don't be." Jack pulls up his own crate, tilts his head, waiting until her eyes meet his. "I _do_ understand, as it happens, and it isn't easy. You're doing a damn sight better than I did the first time, lass."

"You, Jack? That's hard to believe."

"Well, believe it. Lost my breakfast all over the poor corpse, I'm afraid. Bloody disrespectful."

She laughs a little, but her heart isn't in it. "Jack, I don't know that I make a very good pirate."

A short silence. "Well. Never said it would be easy, love."

"I know," she says. "But I didn't think it would be...like that."

"What did you think it was going to be like, then? It isn't always, love. But sometimes it is. And it gets easier."

" _Killing_ people gets easier?"

"Yes," says Jack heavily. "Yes, that too. Easier. But never easy, love. Not for me." He has been looking away out over the sea as he speaks, but now he turns back to her, fixing her with a searching gaze. "I don't let it be, you understand? You have to do it, sometimes, because it's you or them, and you get used to that. They say a man can get used to anything. But you don't let such a thing become easy, become everyday, because then you become Hector Barbossa. Or that bastard Morena."

"I could never get used to it," she says, passionately. "Never!"

"You could," he says. "Anyone could. That's human nature. But it's a choice you make; you always have a choice. Remember that, love. A pirate doesn't have to be a killer. Only a survivor. You have to want to live more than you want the other chap to live, that's all."

 _Or want your friends to live more. Or your lover...or your Captain._ She thinks about this. It makes an odd kind of sense; Jack sense. Still, she shivers, remembering the dead man's fall to the boards, limp, like a puppet whose strings have been cut, the blood pooling beneath his head, the wide and empty eyes. "But you have to go looking for fights," she says.

"Aye, in a way. Usually, if one is clever and picks one's targets well, they don't put up much of one. These Spanish sailors were an exception. But we couldn't pass up a prize like that, not if we wanted to provision a voyage to the Indies."

Elizabeth's head comes up. "So that's what you were waiting for!"

"Indeed," Jack says, amused. "How else did you think we would finance the journey? We're _pirates_ , love, not kings and queens. The gold bullion has to come from somewhere." He reaches out casually, tucks a strand of hair behind her ear. "So what say you, Lizzie? Shall I take you home, now that you have seen the worst of it? It's not too late, you know. And I won't be offended—much," he adds, grinning.

"No," she says slowly, aware to the tips of her toes of his fingers in her hair, smoothing the wayward curls, and then against her cheek, and wondering if he means to kiss her again at last.

But, "Good," is all he says, and drops his hand away. "Shall I tell you about India, then?"

She nods; and he proceeds to tell her of tigers and elephants, maharajahs and henna'd princesses, frenzies of color and noise, scents of flowers and spices, and a thousand heathen gods with enough treasure, cursed and otherwise, to keep the _Black Pearl_ peacefully asea for several lifetimes.

* * *

It seems to Will that his ribs take far too long to heal, though Marie assures him that he is improving relatively quickly. After a few weeks he can walk about slowly with only minimal discomfort, and he finds himself pacing the length of the old forge, stopping to tap his knuckles restlessly on the anvil, running his fingers along the aged but sturdy stonework of the wide furnace. Mr. Brown may have been a drunk, but he taught his trade well; and one of the first lessons Will had learned was to always keep his coals banked and ready, even when the work was slow. A good smith never let his forge-fire go out.

The next day sees him stoking a fire in the hearth. The chimney fumes like nothing he's ever seen, great clouds of black sooty smoke rolling out to choke him, and rousing the doves in the loft into a frenzy as they struggle to all escape at once from what must strike them as a raging inferno. Resolutely, he puts the flames out and sets to work on the chimney.

Nichole comes in sometime later that day, newly arrived from one of her short jaunts out to sea, to find a very black and very pleased with himself Will Turner nursing a well-behaved little blaze in the great fireplace.

"I thought I'd find you here," she says. "It's been years since smoke rose from that chimney."

"Believe me, I know," Will says, presenting his soot-caked face as evidence.

"Marie told me you used to be a blacksmith." Nichole gives the bellows an experimental push, and winces at the noise of rusty metal. "Just like Georges." Her voice is light, but something in the way she stares into the fire betrays her.

"Weren't you his apprentice for awhile?"

"I hated it," she says. "And I was no good at it. Not patient enough. I always hammered too hard and shattered the piece." She looks away. "Georges was...he was very kind. But even he knew I would never make a good craftsman, not if I had wanted to."

"Is that why you left?"

"No," she says, and straightens from the fire, face set; and Will can see that he'll hear no more about her past today.

"I thought I might do a little work here," he says, instead of pushing the matter. "While I get my strength back. I haven't made anything in a long time."

"You miss it," she says.

"Yes," he says; and it's his turn to gaze at the dancing flames on the hearth. "When I was first apprenticed, I thought it was like magic. In a way it is, you know. Changing a dull scrap of steel into a shining thing of beauty and use. The application of heat, the right pressure of the hammer, timing it all perfectly, cooling the metal to the right temperature so that it can take shape without becoming brittle. There's an alchemy to it."

"You even sound like Georges," she says, after a moment. "Like a true craftsman, Will. Why did you ever give it up?"

He picks up the heavy tongs, lifts a glowing piece of scrap from the heat of the fire and lays it on the anvil.

"I did what I thought I should do," he says, and brings the hammer down.

* * *

He stays. He doesn't know quite why he stays, except that the thought of returning to Port Royal, to his empty, echoing house and to society that was always too good for him, leaves a bitter taste in his mouth. He knows they must think him dead; and, after all, he prefers that it stay that way. He imagines explaining his loss of ship and wife to the Governor, pictures the pity, grief and disappointment that will cross Weatherby Swann's face, the disgust and righteous anger that will twist James Norrington's lips when he meets Will in the street. There is nothing left for him in that former life, only shame and debt and loneliness.

Nichole doesn't often ask him about it, his life before he came here to Navidad, to Marie's little safe haven for lost souls, and he's learned not to ask about hers. He knows, though, that she is at least aware that he had a wife, because one night when he was still confined to his bed he had woken in a cold sweat, crying out, and she was there. "Elizabeth," he gasped, still half-tangled in the grip of the nightmare, and Nichole had put a cool hand to his forehead.

"You were dreaming. It's all right," she said, and he wondered again how those hands, hands that had killed, could be so kind.

"She's gone," he whispered, and she answered, "I know. I'm sorry. She is your wife, isn't she? Elizabeth?"

"She _was_ ," Will said bitterly, turning his face away. She said no more, but he felt her presence at his side, though he did not sleep much more that night for fear that the dream would take hold of him again. For he had dreamed of Elizabeth as a mermaid. Her hair streamed around her like seaweed, and she had smiled at him from beneath the surface of the water. And then the dream had turned to horror when he saw her filmy white eyes, dead, and felt her pale dead arms reach out and drag him down into the depths; her smile was a rictus, a death's head grin. He did not want to dream of her that way; but he could not seem to help himself, and the ugly image would rise again and again from his uneasy mind to catch him unawares while he slept.

He dreamed, too, that Elizabeth was standing on a shore far distant to him, seeming to call to him, and reaching out, but he could not hear her, nor she him; sometimes, then, he would hear another woman's voice close to his ear, and become unsure whether he was awake or sleeping, for the voice that spoke to him seemed to be Nichole's. But he could not remember, on true waking, what she had been telling him.

She has not asked about Elizabeth again, and Will is glad of it. He is not sure what he would tell this keen-eyed, unsentimental woman about his marriage and the failure he made of it, but he suspects he knows what she would say about it: that Elizabeth was a weakness in him, his greatest weakness. He fears that she would be right, and feels he could not bear it were she mocking or cruel. So they both keep their silence. Yet when she drops anchor in Navidad harbor and comes to stay for a few days in Marie's house—much more often now than she used to, Marie tells him—she seeks him out in the smithy as soon as she arrives, as if she gains something from the curious half-intimacy between them that consists as much of the things they don't speak of as it does of the words they do exchange.

"I have news," she says abruptly, on one such visit nearly a twelvemonth later. "But I am not sure you will want to hear it."

Will looks up from the hearth, where he is showing Pedro how to temper steel for a blade; the mute boy has taken an interest in metalworking, and Will, finding himself with willing if unofficial apprentice, has been teaching him as he himself relearns the finer points of his former craft. "Why not? Is it bad news?"

Nichole seats herself on an upturned water-barrel, her face carefully blank. "I don't know. As I said. It depends."

"On what?"

She gives him an undecipherable look. "On you."

Will puts down his tools, nodding to Pedro to continue as he's been shown. "You're being very mysterious, Nichole. Maybe you'd better just tell me this news of yours."

She rises abruptly, paces away to examine the swords Will has hung on the wall. Running one finger along the haft of his latest addition, she says, "The _Black Pearl_ has been sighted in the Caribbean again."

"The _Black Pearl_?" Will chuckled. "So Jack Sparrow had taken off for parts unknown and now he's back. That's not news, Nichole. And why would I not want to hear it?"

" _Mon dieu_ ," Nichole murmurs. "Will, I thought you knew! Where did you think she's been all this time? She went with him, you fool! She's been with him all along."

She isn't making any sense. "Knew what? Who is 'she'? With whom?" He crosses the smithy floor to her, places a hand on her shoulder. "Nichole, what are you talking about?"

At his touch, she whirls, wrenching away from him, green eyes blazing. "Elizabeth! Your wife, Will. That is who I am talking about."

"Elizabeth—!" He takes a step back, his mind reeling. "Impossible. She's dead, Nichole. Morena—he said—"

"No," Nichole says quietly. "No, she's not dead. Did Morena tell you that? The man was a liar, Will. He lied to you."

Will staggers, finds the water-drum by blind luck, and sits down on it, hard. Struggling for words, he finally chokes out, "Elizabeth's alive? How—? But she was captured and...and executed!"

Nichole says, voice tight, "Francisco Morena never captured your wife. He never laid a hand on her, never even saw her. If he told you that, it was merely so he would have a hold over you."

"I don't understand," says Will, exasperated. "You're telling me that you _knew_ she was alive all this time? And you never said anything? Why, for God's sake? Did you think that I would even still _be_ here if she was out there, somewhere?" He becomes aware that he is shouting, that Pedro has dropped his tools and shrunk away from the sound; he controls himself with an effort. "What...in heaven's name...is going on, Nichole?"

"Will—" She passes her hand across her eyes briefly. "I'm sorry, Will. I thought you knew. I swear to you, I thought you knew, but it seemed you never wanted to talk about her, so I never spoke of it."

"I didn't want to talk about her because I thought she was _dead_ ," Will growls.

"I thought it might be because she had left you," Nichole says. "Because she ran away to sea with Jack Sparrow. He was your friend, wasn't he?"

"With Jack—! But no. That's ridiculous. Elizabeth would never—"

"Perhaps not," says Nichole. "But still, she is with him. On the _Black Pearl._ She's part of the legend now—haven't you heard it told? In the taverns? Hurricane Lizzie, they call her. As fierce as any male pirate who ever sailed the Caribbee." She says it in a sing-song cadence, as if quoting a song or a children's story.

"I never go to the tavern," Will admits. "Are you sure it's _my_ Elizabeth, Nichole? That doesn't sound like her at all. Elizabeth would never become a pirate..." But doubt overtakes him, and he falls silent.

"It is her," Nichole says positively. "I know it, because I met them together. In Tortuga, before I ever met you. She spoke of you, Will Turner. Said she had wronged you...I thought that was why I found you in Morena's clutches, seeking death."

"Oh, God." Will sinks his head in his hands. "Elizabeth never wronged me. It was I who wronged her...She ran away to sea as a stowaway on the _Lady Swann_. And she did so because she asked me to take her with me, and I told her no. When my ship was seized, I thought they'd captured her as well. But she must have escaped somehow, and run into Jack in the town." He raises his head. "I'm glad of it, Nichole. Jack's a good man. He will have looked after her for me."

"It would seem from the stories," Nichole says dryly, "that she now knows how to look after herself."

"When you put it that way—" Will's own laugh surprises him— "she always did." Then he sucks in his breath; a thought has struck him. "She must think _I'm_ dead. Nobody from my old life knows I'm alive. Poor Elizabeth! I should try to get a message to her."

Nichole says, an odd note in her voice, "You can see her in person, if you like."

"I'd have to track down the _Black Pearl_ first," Will says doubtfully.

"No, you wouldn't," Nichole says. "I've already done it. I know where the _Pearl_ makes berth. Jack will have careened her—after a long sea-voyage, she'll need it, and if there is anything he cares for, it's that ship of his." She's watching Will narrowly, as if gauging his reactions. "I can take you to the place. If you wish it."

"You mean that," he says. "You'd do this? You'd take me to her?"

"Yes, Will Turner, I would," says Nichole, and smiles slightly, as if it pains her. "Ask, and it shall be given. Or answer. Yes or no."

"Yes," he says. "Yes, I'd like that, Nichole. Thank you."

She nods, once, sharply. "Very well," she says, still in that same strange tone. "We sail tomorrow at first light. Be ready."

"I will be," he answers; but she is already walking away. 


	30. No Oaths But These

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Special Thanks Due:** To Sharon (Geek Mama) for beta-reading and reassuring me that it all makes sense. All mistakes are mine alone. To Joan, for unflagging encouragement and cheerleading. And to all of you who stuck with me through this nearly interminable work in progress--I don't think it would ever have been finished without you.

**Chapter XXIX.  
** **No Oaths But These**

_As she stepped away from me  
_ _and she moved through the fair  
_ _and fondly I watched her  
_ _move here and move there  
_ _and then she turned homeward  
_ _with one star awake  
_ _like a swan in the evening  
_ _moves over the lake_

_The people were saying,  
_ _no two e'er were wed  
_ _but one had a sorrow  
_ _that never was said  
_ _and I smiled as she passed  
_ _with her goods and her gear  
_ _and that was the last  
_ _that I saw of my dear._

\--"She Moved Through the Fair"

* * *

After over a week's exhausting maintenance on her hull, the _Black Pearl_ has been pushed out of the shallows into deeper water and righted, her sails trimmed, her cargo reloaded. The afternoon has been spent at rest, the crew lounging about in the shade of the palms and mangroves lining the shore or in the warm sun of the beach.

Elizabeth, washing her grimy hands and face at the edge of the lagoon, looks up quickly at a light tap on her shoulder; but it's not who she expected.

"Come with me, girl," Anamaria says. "Got something to show you."

She leads Elizabeth up along the freshwater stream that flows into the lagoon, through a jungle full of birdcalls, green shadows and angled shafts of light. Some ways up the gentle slope, the creek widens into a clear pool both wide and deep, fed upstream by a small and merry waterfall.

Ana leaps up onto one of the flat slabs of rock at the pool's edge, already shucking her clothes without a hint of self-consciousness; Elizabeth hangs back, though she stares longingly at the water. "Don't any of the men ever come here?" she asks, worried.

Ana grins at her over one shoulder. "Not if they know what's good for 'em." She stretches lithe brown arms above her head, standing naked in dappled sunlight for a moment before she dives; her body slices through the water with the faintest of splashes. Reappearing near the waterfall, she calls, "And they _do_ know. I'd kill anyone I caught slinkin' about out here fixin' to get an eyeful."

"Even Jack?" Elizabeth says slyly.

Ana snorts. "Him! He's a one to tease, but we understand each other. I'm crew to him, and he's Captain to me, and that's the end of it. Don't think it even occurs to him I've got woman parts anymore. 'Specially not with you aboard, Lizzie-girl."

The words carry no bitterness. Elizabeth considers them as she unbuttons her blouse, the lure of a real bath overruling any shyness that might have survived sharing Ana's cabin this past year. "So you and Jack never—"

"No, we never." Ana chuckles. "That famous charm of his worked on me just once. 'Twas my _Jolly Mon_ he wanted then, and my _Jolly Mon_ he got. That was enough to learn me better."

"You're a wiser woman than I," Elizabeth says, laughing ruefully. "It's a lesson I've yet to learn, I'm afraid."

"Oh, you hold your own. I've seen it." Ana glances sidelong at her, lying back to float on the surface. "And he don't try so many tricks on you, either."

Elizabeth slips into the water; it's cool, but not cold. "Maybe he doesn't want anything of me, then."

She says it quietly, not meaning for the other woman to hear, but Ana gives her a sharp look. "If you really think so, girl, you're more fool than ye claim to be." She dives again and resurfaces a few feet away, shaking droplets from her dark curls. "But what he wants from you, he won't take or trick from you. Not if you ain't willin'."

_But I am willing._ Elizabeth frowns. Whatever Ana might say, she has wondered of late whether the novelty of her presence in Jack's life and on his ship hasn't merely expired, become a commonplace thing. Admittedly, her self-imposed mourning period for Will has prevented her from going to him, but he hasn't even tried to kiss her since that single night they spent in his cabin, in his bed. Still, the way he looks at her sometimes—

She ducks her head under the water, and wishes that she could wash away her doubts and fears along with the tar and salt-rime on her skin.

* * *

Back at camp some time later, a clean, combed, and dry Elizabeth emerges from her tent wrapped in a deep red sari, her hair bound loosely back from her face by a spare bandanna of Jack's. Much as she enjoys the freedom of movement provided by breeches, dressing in something other than her worn, salt-stiff sailor's togs reveals itself as a forgotten pleasure, and she hasn't had a chance to wear the sari since purchasing it on impulse in an Indian bazaar. It does not require a corset; the rich silk slides caressingly over her body, though she snags a few threads when she smooths the cloth. Turning her hands palm up, she examines them, smiling wryly to herself; they are calloused now, rough, a sea-rat's hands.

She pads barefoot to the grassy dune where Jack lies, the very picture of leisure: arms folded behind his head, long legs crossed before him, tri-corn tipped over his eyes to shield them from the sun. She is sure he is asleep, and bends to wake him, but before she can do so he says without stirring, "Need something, Lizzie?"

"How did you know it was me?"

"By a pricking of my thumbs," he says, grinning into his hat. "Also, no one else among my crew would scent themselves with rose-water." He pushes the tri-corn back, then, to squint up at her. "That's a striking costume. New, is it?"

She twirls before him proudly. "You like it?"

"It suits you." He tilts his head appraisingly. "You couldn't fight in it, though."

"I don't intend to try," she says. "You aren't expecting an ambush, are you, Jack?"

"Not at all. Nature of an ambush, m'dear. Many's an unfortunate buccaneer been caught unprepared and unawares while careened on beaches much like this one." He waves a languorous hand. "That's the pirate's life, you see—one must always be ready to face the unexpected."

She arches an eyebrow at him, his half-lidded eyes and indolent sprawl. "Oh, and you certainly look ready for anything, Captain Sparrow."

"Remarkable," he growls, "how appearances can be deceiving," and he reaches up before she can dart out of the way, pulling her down beside him.

"Jack!" She pouts on principle when he captures her wrist to prevent her from rising; but the sand is warm, and he is touching her, and her heart's not in the struggle. "Now see what you've done," she says, laughing. "My pretty things are all over sand."

"That suits you, too," he says, remorseless.

She glances at him under her eyelashes, thinking about the last year spent at sea, and all that they have and have not done together. _Emphasis on the "have not."_ "Look at these," she says, by way of distracting herself from her own musings and his careless proximity, and spills the contents of her treasure-pouch onto the ground before him. "I have no idea what to do with them—most have no worth, except to me, and the others I wouldn't sell for the world."

He picks through the baubles: the sleek, long-shafted tail-feather of a cormorant, colorful clay beads from Zanzibar mixed with knobby Indian prayer beads, a tiny bone elephant, a silver mandala, a gold earring plucked from the ear of the Moor she killed on her first raid, and most beautiful of all, a single black pearl pendant that Jack himself acquired for her, by what means she knows not. Rolling the pearl between finger and thumb, he considers her, lips curving speculatively.

"Come here, love."

She moves closer to him, wary of the mischievous gleam in his eyes; but he only sits up, plucking her handkerchief from her head.

"What are you—"

"Hold still," he commands. He combs gently through her hair; she bends her head, leaning into him as he twists a strand or two together, expert fingers creating a slender braid. When he picks up the first bead, she knows what he's about, and laughs out loud.

Her hair is finer and thinner than his, and it takes him some time and much muttered cursing to achieve the effect he wants. But finally he says, "Ah!" and sits back; she shakes her head, setting the trinkets swinging, accustoming herself to the unfamiliar weight of them. The feather hangs over her left ear, the black pearl glinting like Jack's eyes in the periphery of her vision.

"I must look quite the savage," she says, laughing again as she re-ties the handkerchief, and he grins back at her.

"Like an Amazon," he agrees, obviously well-pleased with his handiwork. "Like a pirate, Hurricane Lizzie."

* * *

"You can't see the lagoon from the lee side, for the mangroves and the cay," Nichole tells Will. "But if you follow the beach northward, you should come upon the _Pearl_ 's berth easily enough."

They are moored under mangroves themselves, the small _Gyrfalcon_ tucked into a discreet inlet, sails furled on her single mast to keep them from fouling on reaching branches; leaves and shrouds of moss overhang the deck, and her hull scrapes rhythmically against the tangled roots beneath the water's surface. Will looks out at the beach, at the green island rising in slope after gentle slope from the sea, and his heart quickens with anticipation and no small measure of anxiety. Elizabeth is here somewhere, alive, unconscious of his presence. What will she do, what will she say when she sees him? Will she see where he's changed; will she have changed? In the two day's journey from Hispaniola, he has found that he can no longer imagine the meeting that lies before him, can barely recall her long-beloved face; a year's practice has taught him to forget all too well. What if he fails to recognize her?

"You could come with me," he suggests hopefully.

Nichole shakes her head; in the deepening shadows, her face is shrouded, inscrutable. "I have no business there. This is between you and your wife. My presence would only...complicate matters."

"Will you wait, at least?"

"Until the dawn tide," she says. "No later."

He hesitates, feeling that there ought to be farewells but unwilling to give voice to them. "Thank you," he says, finally. "You didn't have to do this, you know."

"I know."

He should be eager to leave, to step ashore, to see the woman he has thought for so long to be dead and take her in her arms. Still, he lingers, and still he cannot find the words that would speak to the woman before him; all his eagerness has turned, by some twilight alchemy, to dread. "I owe you yet another favor, then."

"You owe me nothing," she says, with one of her brief half-smiles; maybe she has understood something of what he might have said, after all. "The hour grows late, my friend. You should set out before full dark."

He nods, turning away to the waiting boat, and wonders why it feels like losing something.

* * *

As night begins to fall, a group of native islanders descends upon the _Pearls_ ' little camp from the inland hills; Elizabeth leaps up, gripping her pistol, as the host of painted dark faces and feathered spears materializes out of the jungle. But Jack is already greeting them, shaking hands with the warriors, bowing to the bare-chested women as if they are ladies of high society. When a boy brings forward a drum as big as he is, setting it up near one of their bonfires, and a group of women appear bearing two whole roast pigs and a quantity of other foodstuffs, Elizabeth understands: this is not a _war_ party, but a reception of sorts.

"You know these people?" she asks of Jack, quietly, when he returns to her side.

"Old friends," he avers. "Did a small favor for the tribe years ago and they made me a sort of honorary chief—why're you laughing?"

"I'm sorry," she says. "It's just—sometimes I think I will never know all there is to know about you, Jack Sparrow."

"I sincerely hope not," he says, grinning. "Here, you must meet Yemaya—that's the grand old matriarch holding court over yonder, the one favoring us with the gimlet glare. She's their High Priestess and will be quite offended if I don't introduce you. Treats me like a younger and often transgressive son, she does. Wonderful lady," and he takes Elizabeth's arm, guiding her through the suddenly crowded encampment.

Yemaya receives them as graciously as any queen. A tiny, birdlike creature bedecked with more beads and trinkets than Jack himself, she wears a necklace of shark's teeth and pearls round her neck and, incongruously, a faded sailor's pea-coat over her more traditional garb. Jack jabbers to her in what must be the native tongue, a quick, rolling, long-voweled speech. Elizabeth catches her own name more than once, and drops a deep curtsy, bowing her head; she feels suddenly very young and nervous, and thanks her father silently for years of tedious diplomatic training.

"I'm very pleased to make your acquaintance," she murmurs.

The old lady fixes her with a disconcertingly sharp-eyed gaze, directing what sounds like a question to Jack. Elizabeth sees his eyes widen in surprise; he chuckles, but casts an uneasy sideways glance at her even as he answers smoothly. Whatever he says makes Yemaya smile; her merry reply, however, seems to unnerve Jack further, and he speaks at length, his gestures placating and a bit frenetic.

Yemaya, unmoved, takes Elizabeth's hand, and regarding them both gravely, places it in Jack's with a few solemn and commanding words. Elizabeth looks back at Jack, and discovers, as is usual when she hopes to read his face, a singularly undecipherable expression in residence there. He dips his head, thanking the priestess or perhaps excusing them from her presence.

"What was all that about?" she demands, once they have got away. By the fire, the boy has begun a slow rhythm on his drum, and several of the _Pearls_ have brought out their own instruments, tuning up an impromptu orchestra. The noise tugs at something in her, melodious and haunting.

Jack gives her an odd look, but says, "Nothin', love. Wasn't important."

"Jack, I'm not stupid. That wasn't nothing. What did she say?"

"Very well." He examines his fingernails assiduously, walking faster. "She asked if you were my wife."

Elizabeth stops short, dragging him to a halt as well. "And what did you tell her?"

"No, of course! I told her no. That we were friends and shipmates, nothing more."

"Oh," she says, stung. "Is that all?" _Nothing more?_

He rolls his eyes. "Yes, Lizzie, that was all. No need to worry. I didn't claim you as my concubine, or even my mistress. Unless you wish I _had?_ "

She can't answer that last with dignity, but she presses on, "And that bit with the hands? What did she say then?"

"Just some nonsense," Jack mutters, and drops her hand as if he's suddenly realized he was still holding it.

She glares at him, hands on her hips. "Jack—"

"All right! She offered to do the honors herself."

"What!"

"You see," he says plaintively, "there was a reason why I would have liked to keep such an insignificant piece of information to myself. But no, you had to ask. You can never let well enough alone, can you?"

She ignores this, thinking of Yemaya's solemn pronouncement over their joined hands. "Jack! Are we—did she—!"

"No, m'lady, we aren't and she didn't." He turns dark eyes, finally, to meet hers, and her breath catches at what she sees therein. "However. When I told her, thanks ever so much, but I didn't think you would approve, she said—" and he rattles off something in the native tongue.

"What does that mean?"

"'The true bonds of the heart require no oath but this'," he says softly. "An imperfect translation, but the best I can give you, I'm afraid."

"Oh," she says again, and her heart thumps in her chest.

" _Oh_ ," he mimics, rocking back on his heels. "Indeed. Just what I said myself. Oh."

"And that was just some nonsense, was it?" She tries to keep her voice light, but the tremor in it will not be quelled.

"I don't know," and he, in turn, sounds suddenly and uncharacteristically serious. "What do you think, Lizzie? Was it?"

She finds she cannot answer him in words; instead, she steps forward deliberately, and reaches up to tangle her fingers among his braids and trinkets, holding his startled gaze as she covers his mouth with hers. And he seems to consider it answer enough.

Her time for mourning, she decides, is over.

* * *

Blue twilight gives way to a warm, moonlit evening as Will reaches the hidden lagoon. He immediately recognizes the distinctive dark bulk of the _Pearl_ at anchor out on the water; swallowing hard, he realizes that part of him has not believed until now that she would really be here. Deep down, he believed that he would be too late, that his bird would have flown already, the _Black Pearl_ slipping away and vanishing forever on the wide, trackless sea and taking with her the last good thing left over from his old life.

Music, laughter, and the scent of cooking food floats across to him from the widest stretch of silvery beach, where a lively crowd moves in and out through the glow of several bonfires: a curiously idyllic tableau, in which he must play an outsider, the intruder in the shadows. He sucks in a deep breath and makes his way resolutely towards the camp, searching the knots of sailors and dark-skinned islanders for a familiar face.

And he sees her in the midst of the company, suddenly, a slender figure draped in red cloth bright as flame, her hair loose around her shoulders except where it is braided and adorned with charms that flash in the firelight, her sun-bleached head tipped back, laughing out loud in un-self-conscious joy. Laughing and dancing with a bare-chested Jack Sparrow, his hands gripping Elizabeth Turner's waist, her arms round his neck, their gazes locked as they move in tandem through the lively steps. Jack swings her around, lifts her up, pulls her close, his eyes intent on her face...

_Oh._

There is no mistaking that look, nor the answer shining forth in Elizabeth's eyes.

He stands frozen, unable to breathe, to turn away, to call her name. Nichole warned him about this. She'd been right, right all along.

He should never have come here.

Then, without warning, she looks up and straight at him, the roses in her cheeks withering away to leave her pale as winter, and the spell is broken. He backs out of her view into the shadows from whence he came, and turns, and walks quickly and unsteadily down the beach away from her. Away from them.

Jack and Elizabeth. _Oh, God._

She's left him behind. Why couldn't he have done the same?

* * *

Jack and Elizabeth dance.

They've both had a little too much rum, and Jack has carelessly discarded his shirt some time ago; he smiles his golden smile at her, his dark mane tumbling haphazardly around his bare shoulders, and she thinks he's far too beautiful to be true, like some magnificent, untamed creature of myth. A faun, perhaps, or a minor god, only with scars, and all hers. Her heart speeds up to match the drums; it seems as though it's just the two of them, whirling dizzily on the sand, the stars spinning overhead, the pipes and the fiddle skirling their high and wild enchantment.

And then, abruptly, they are no longer alone. There is someone watching them from the edge of the firelight, standing a little apart from the others. She gasps and stumbles, and Jack catches her against him when she would have fallen. They stand still in the midst of the dancers; Elizabeth tries to glimpse again the face she has seen, but her view is blocked by the swirling tide of bodies.

"What's the matter, love?" Jack's voice is husky, breathless, his mouth barely an inch from hers. "You look as though you've seen a ghost."

"I think I _have_ ," she says shakily. She pushes away from him, dodging through the crowd towards where she thought she saw...but no. It can't have been him. It must have been someone like him, an illusion, a vision, a dream.

She almost believes it, until she sees the lone figure hurrying away along the shore. She knows the set of those shoulders, the length of the stride that has now broken into a near-run.

"Will," she whispers, and inside her something fragments, her stomach twisting, throat closing painfully tight, like a vise. "No. Dear God, it's impossible. _Will—_ "

Behind her, Jack says sharply, "Lizzie—" but she pays him no mind, fairly flying down the beach after the fleeing apparition.

"Will Turner! _Wait_!"

Ahead of her, finally, he stops, turns slowly around, and now she's near enough to see his face again.

She draws a shuddering breath that's more than half a sob, and throws herself into his arms.

* * *

A startled Anamaria glances up from her dice game, at which she is trouncing her distressed opponents handily, to see Jack Sparrow stalk past her, straight through the crowd to the water's edge. He doesn't stop, just keeps going until the water covers his shoulders, where he pauses briefly and then dives into the waves, swimming for the _Black Pearl_.

"Oh, bugger," Ana says, and leaps up, abandoning her hard-earned winnings and bewildered fellow players, though she remembers to collect her lucky dice. "Oh, bloody hell. Should've known this'd happen sooner or later. What's the damn fool done this time, I wonder?" And whether by this she means her Captain or his Lizzie, she has no clear idea.

One of the men points wordlessly down the beach. She stares at the two figures embracing there, then back towards the swimmer, who has now almost gained the _Pearl._

"Oh, _bloody_ hell," she says again, and starts for the boats.

Some folks, she reflects, just don't know when to stay dead.

But before she can reach the tide-line, a wrinkled claw closes on her elbow. She whirls, to find Jack's little matriarch eying her knowingly.

"Wait, child," says Yemaya. "Wait and see. This story's not all told."

* * *

He is real, after all, solid and warm and _Will_.

"You're alive," she says, unnecessarily, into his shirt.

"Yes," he says. "And so are you." But his arms go around her only mechanically, and he stands stiffly in her embrace.

"But—how? I saw—You blew up!"

"I got out," he says shortly. "I survived."

She steps back, and sees the same remoteness in his face as she felt in his body. "Will? What's the matter?"

"I saw you," he says, and his eyes are hard. Not Will's eyes, surely. "You and Jack Sparrow. Together. Just now."

A hot flush rises in her cheeks; she cannot stop it. "I...Will, I thought you were dead. For a year now, a whole year! And I—Jack—"

"Don't," he says harshly. "You smell of rum, Elizabeth. Like him. And this—" He reaches out for a moment as if to touch her beaded hair, and drops his hand to his side. "Lord, you _are_ a pirate now. He's made you just like him, hasn't he?"

"No," she says, defiant. "I've always been like him, Will." _Peas in a pod._ "You just see it now, that's all."

"Perhaps," he says. His face is closed. "There are so many things I didn't see about you, Elizabeth. I'm sorry."

The words cut her to the quick; she cannot speak.

He continues, "And I'm sorry I didn't come before—I thought you were dead, too, that Morena had executed you. I'm pleased to find you well. That's why I came. And to invite you to come home with me, of course, but—" here he shrugs, and moves as if to go.

"Wait!" She follows him, takes his arm; he doesn't pull out of her grasp, and she takes his stillness as a signal to continue. "I'm sorry, Will. Sorry for everything. God knows I loved you. Love you, I love you still. And I'm glad, so glad that you're alive! But—"

He looks down at her, and something cracks in his expression, though she still can't define what lies behind it. "But you love Jack Sparrow, too. I know. I saw it in your eyes."

"No, I—" And she breaks off, closes her eyes, opens them again and faces him squarely. Only the truth will do, now. "Yes," she says softly. "Yes, I do. I love him, Will."

"And he makes you happy. This life—" he waves a hand at the water, the starry sky, and the _Pearl_ between— "This makes you happy."

"Yes," she says. "It does."

And then Will Turner does something that startles her exceedingly: he takes her hands in his, and leans to kiss her on the forehead. "Then I'm glad," he says simply, though his voice is thick with emotion. "Jack's done what I could never do. Goodbye, Elizabeth." And he releases her hands, and starts to walk away.

"Will!" she cries, as soon she can speak.

He turns, waiting.

She dashes the tears from her cheeks, resolutely. "Are you happy, Will? In your new life, are you happy?"

"I will be," he says, and his smile only goes a little crooked from pain before he turns away for the last time.

"Goodbye," she whispers to his back, once so well-known, as she once knew the rest of him; and the wind snatches the word from her mouth, leaving her standing on the silver sand, alone, her heart aching with too many emotions to be voiced or counted.

Some time later, she also turns, and traces her own footsteps back to the now-fading fires.

* * *

Will boards the _Gyrfalcon_ wearily, drawing up the little dory behind him and lashing it in place; he's surprised how home-like it seems to him after the few hours he's spent away, and he lingers on deck, trying to sort through what he's feeling and give it a name. After awhile, Nichole emerges from her cabin to join him. She says nothing, just leans on the doorframe, considering him, as if he represents an anomaly she hasn't quite planned for.

"You came back," she says finally, matter-of-factly. She could as easily be discussing the weather.

Will leans his elbows on the _Gyrfalcon_ 's rail, watching the little waves lick gently at the hull. "Yes."

"She's not coming with you."

"No." He waits for the rush of regret, of loss, of anger, but what there was of it is already spent and done. He feels strangely at peace. Almost... _relieved_ , like he's just faced a firing-squad and, unexpectedly, been pardoned...

Silence descends. He can feel her watching him, though she does not stir from her lounging position.

"I suppose this is where I tell you I am so very sorry," she says at last.

Her voice is deliberately casual; her gaze, however, when Will turns to meet it, is anything but. "Are you?" He keeps his own tone light. "Sorry, that is?"

"Not in the least." She says it quietly, but there is a challenge in the words, and in her eyes.

He laughs then, and sees surprise flash across her face. "In that case, neither am I." And by way of accepting the challenge she has offered, he steps across to her, takes her gently by the shoulders, and kisses her.

Nichole makes a tiny startled noise against his mouth, and tenses under his hands, eyes widening; for a second, Will realizes, they both think she is going to push him away, to spring at him in fury like an affronted wild creature. But when she does finally move, it is to surge against him, to wrap one hand round the back of his head and pull him down into the kiss, which under her lead becomes rapidly deeper and more demanding. And when she pushes him backwards with a fierce, triumphant smile, he finds himself stumbling in the direction of her stateroom.

He lets her guide him, because they are on her ship and she knows the way, and because she has not yet stopped kissing him.

At the cabin door, though, she breaks away, halting them; they are both breathing hard. Her smile has faded, and she's favoring him with that keen, searching look he's come to know so well.

"What is it?"

"I'm not her, Will," she says softly.

"I know," he says; but she still grasps his upper arms, holding him away from her.

"Do you?"

"Nichole," he says, and stops. But he must admit this to her, and to himself. "I loved my wife. Part of me always will. But..." He looks down at the _Gyrfalcon_ 's boards, at the clean, straight lines of tar that bear witness to their Captain's exacting standards, searching for the right words. "I loved an ideal of Elizabeth without really ever knowing her, or loving what she was. The real woman...she escaped me. She always has. Loving her became a duty to me, a duty I held myself to because she was my wife and I a good husband." He dares to glance back up at her, and fancies that the intensity in her gaze has subtly acquired a new quality, although it is one he would be hard pressed to define. "My life with her is over," he says to that unnamed expression. "She was a fantasy, but you are real to me, Nichole. I know you, and it's you I want now. You and only you. I swear--"

"Don't," she says quickly. "Such oaths only beg to be broken." But the spark in her eyes has leapt into flame. She opens the door and waits for him to follow her inside.

* * *

In her bed, his face is earnest as a boy's, but his hands are those of a man, skilled and sure. He touches her with something like reverence, and bends to kiss her scars. As she straddles him to take him into her, he breathes her name like a prayer. She stills momentarily above him, in astonishment and wonder, until he opens his eyes. They are dark with desire and sudden doubt at her hesitation, and she takes his head gently in her hands and kisses his parted lips until there is no more doubt before she moves again: question and answer, both unspoken.

When they are done, he leans on one elbow, his other hand at the curve of her hip, tracing a lazy pattern there. She watches him, waiting for him to withdraw into awkwardness or perhaps guilt, but he shows no signs of either. It is she who retreats first, unaccountably embarrassed by the tenderness in his regard, looking away and down at his hand touching her instead. It is very brown next to her white skin and calloused from his work at the forge these last months: rough but somehow capable of this feather-light caress, of sending slow shivers of warmth through her core to places she thought were cold and dead. Like her heart...

"I can't ask you to marry me," he says suddenly.

Caught off guard, she stares at him wildly. " _What?_ "

"I'm sorry," he says hastily, misinterpreting her alarm. "I mean...I'm already married. Technically. So I can't...But...well, Marie offered me the smithy. So you could stay with me. Live with me."

"No," she says, without thinking; and sees the hurt bloom in his eyes. He pulls his hand away, and moves as if to sit up, but she drapes one leg over him and rolls until she's on top of him again, propping her chin on her hands, her elbows at either side of his head, effectively pinning him. "I'll stay with you," she says, her lips an inch above his. "When I'm there, I'll stay with you. But I won't live with you. Or off you."

He looks confused for a second; but then he smiles, and it's like the sunrise. "Nichole D'Bouvoire, I believe you are the strangest woman I've ever known."

"If I were the man of the two of us, and you the woman, you would not think it so strange," she says, with a little laugh. "I have a business to run, and a ship to sail."

"The call of the sea." Will's voice is thoughtful. "It seems to me I used to hear it much more loudly."

"You shall sail with me, if you hear it again," says Nichole, and lets her mouth drop to his.

* * *

The _Black Pearl_ 's Great Cabin door is shut. Elizabeth lifts a fist to knock, then thinks better of it and reaches for the latch, finding it unlocked.

"Took you long enough, didn't it?" Jack says irritably from within, as she eases the door open. "Here, go rouse those lazy, sodden dogs from their carousing and get them aboard and above. I've no wish to spend another day on this sorry rock. We sail tonight."

Elizabeth steps inside. He is standing at his navigation table in a familiar pose, wild dark head bent slightly, brooding over his charts. One be-ringed hand curls casually around a dubious-looking bottle.

"Well?" he barks, without glancing up. "'S not like you to dawdle, Ana. What was it you wanted, then?"

"Jack," she says softly, and sees him go quite still. "It's me."

Silence. Except for a whitening of knuckles round the neck of his bottle, he does not move or look at her. Finally he says roughly, "You've come back for the rest of your things, I suppose."

"Jack, I'm not—"

"They're still in your trunk where you left them. Gibbs or somebody will be happy to help you with the load. Tell 'em it's Captain's orders."

"But—"

"Handsomely, now. Tide's changin'. I don't have all night, y'know."

"Jack!" she almost screams. "Will you _listen_ for once, instead of behaving like a perfect ass!"

Silence again, for just a moment. Then he whirls on her, theatrically. "Very well, Mrs. Turner. It seems I have no choice but to play Bottom to your Titania, and as such I am, you might say, _all ears_. Just what is it that you have come to say?"

"Don't you Mrs. Turner me," she snaps, and then stops. There is a storm brewing in his dark face and lowering brow. With that bottle in hand he cuts an arresting and thoroughly piratical figure, but it's the dangerous glitter in his black eyes that gives her pause. He's as displeased as she's ever seen him, and it is she who has made him so.

He sketches an impatient gesture with his free hand. "It's your name, innit?" Once he might have said it lightly, but now he just sounds bitter and impossibly weary. "C'mon, then, m'lady. The sooner you can be gone, the sooner I can be gone. Let's have out with it and be done, savvy?"

"You have no right to be angry with me," she says, keeping her tone even with an effort. "You know you have not. He was dead—to me, he was dead—and now he's alive again. What did you expect me to do? Slap him? Let him go away again without saying a word to him? He's my _husband,_ Jack!"

"I know," Jack says, heavily. "Believe me, I know. And _if_ I could have expected any of this, I wouldn't have expected you to do anything else." The anger has ebbed from his eyes, leaving them bleak, lightless and fathomless. "I'm sorry, Lizzie. I was a fool to believe that you ever belonged to me."

"You were indeed," she murmurs. "I belong to myself, Jack. You taught me that." She steps forward, holding his gaze, moving slowly as if he's a wild creature that might spook and bolt, or charge. "Tell me," she says. "Do you really want me off the _Pearl_?"

"Doesn't matter whether I do or not," he says, voice tight. "'S your life and only yours, as we've established, and how, where, or with whom you choose to bloody lead it, that's no bloody business of mine, is it? Your decision. What I want makes no difference."

"No." She steps again. "It makes all the difference."

She's almost close enough to touch him now; too close, for he spins away, pacing to the cabin's long windows to stare out at the dark water. "Maybe old Gibbs is right after all," he says after a moment. "A woman like yourself, Elizabeth, you spin a man 'round like a boat with no keel, until he doesn't know which way is north, or up or down for that matter. Until I don't know myself whether I want you gone or not." His fingers splay on the glass; he adds, low, "You should go to him, love. It's what _you_ want. Don't stay on my account."

He's left the bottle on the table. She picks it up, fingers the lip as if it was his; it's still warm from his grasp. "That's the thing, Jack," she says. "Will's already gone."

"Then why are you still here?" he demands, petulant, impatient. "Does it amuse you to plague me? Is that it?"

"I let him go, Jack. Without me. I told him—" She draws a deep breath; it hitches in her throat. "I told him I loved another man, you see. I couldn't lie to him. And so he went away."

He doesn't respond, doesn't even move; for a moment she thinks he hasn't heard her. As it is, she barely hears him say her name, "Lizzie," on a breath, like a laugh or, perhaps, an oath. She only knows that he has started to cross the room to her, that she has met him halfway, that he is crushing her against him and kissing her fiercely.

"So I take it this means you'll permit me to stay," Elizabeth murmurs, when they finally come up for air. "I hope so, because I really have nowhere else to go, unless Yemaya adopts me into the tribe."

"Terms conditional upon your good behavior," Jack says, his lips on her throat. " _God_ , Lizzie—"

"I am always good," she says, with a wicked smile, and touches him again so that he trembles with need.

"You are both a liar and an incorrigible minx." The ragged edge to his words stokes the rising heat in her belly and between her thighs; his bed seems miles away. They can make that journey later. For now, she pulls him down with her onto the cabin floor.

" _Pirate,_ " she says against his hungry mouth.

"Temptress." His hands roam over her body, and he scowls down at her. "Blast you, why are you wearing such difficult clothes?"

She laughs, reaching up to release the hidden pin that holds the cloth of the sari together, and speech falters and fails for some time after that.

* * *

At last, when they lie still together, his head pillowed on her stomach, their fingers tangling together on her breast, she asks him, "Did you truly think I would leave you, Jack? That I would change my mind?"

"Certainly wouldn't be the first time," he says. "Nor the last, I'll wager."

"Perhaps not." She lays her hand along his cheek. "But I made this choice long ago, Jack. I think I made it when I first hatched my wild scheme to escape Port Royal, though I didn't know it. I was looking for the _Black Pearl_ , even then."

"You were looking for freedom," he says, and turns to kiss her palm.

"No," she says. "For you, Jack Sparrow. I was looking for you, all along."

He lifts his head at this, flashing her a brilliant grin. "Why, my love," he drawls, "of course you were." So saying, he gathers her in his arms to kiss her long and deeply; and she needs no more claim, or vow, or declaration now, than that which she reads written in his eyes.

**\--FINIS--**


End file.
